20.5 What is ELIAS to consider in the program accreditation regarding the application in ELIAS?

A distinction must be made between a joint study programme(case group 1, see FAQ 20.1) and several identical or essentially identical study programmes conducted in parallel(case group 2, see FAQ 20.1).

In the case of a joint study programme(case group 1), an accreditation decision necessarily applies to the entire study programme, as it is the subject of accreditation as a whole. Since such an accreditation decision cannot be made without the consent of all degree awarding institutions involved, all degree awarding institutions involved in a study programme must agree to the application. Without such a declaration of intent, the Accreditation Council cannot accept the application for decision. For the application, the university submitting the application must enclose the informal declarations of consent of all other cooperating degree awarding institutions.

A higher education institution that does not award its own degree, but only provides modules, does not have to agree to the application.

This is to be distinguished from the constellation in which several higher education institutions offer identical or predominantly identical study programmes in parallel(case group 2). For this reason, each higher education institution must submit its own accreditation application.

In this case, a separate accreditation decision can legally be made for each higher education institution independently of any applications from the other participating higher education institutions.

In both constellations, the higher education institutions involved are requested to indicate in the application, e.g. by means of a message in ELIAS, that this is a study programme related cooperation in accordance with Section 20 MRVO, the nature of this cooperation (implementation of a joint study programme according to case group 1 or implementation of several identical or predominantly identical study programmes according to case group 2) and the application numbers of all applications submitted for the cooperation.