Business School Accreditations
Accreditations are Nyenrode’s license to operate; therefore, it is necessary to meet the quality requirements set by the Nederlands Vlaamse Accreditatieorganisatie (Accreditation Organization of the Netherlands and Flanders, or NVAO) and international accreditation organizations EQUIS and AMBA. Regular evaluations of our educational programs by panel of experts (peer review panels) are important in our system of quality assurance and highly valued by the university. Potential students are keen to enroll in accredited programs. Employers look at accreditations to determine the validity of programs and whether a graduate is qualified.
Obtaining accreditations involves evaluation and planning by all internal stakeholders, including staff, faculty, students, graduates, and advisory boards. The coordination is carried out by the Academic Services Center (ASC).
EQUIS
EQUIS is an accreditation system of the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD). It is one of the leading international systems of quality assessment, improvement, and accreditation of higher education institutions in management and business administration. This accreditation guarantees continuous quality improvement, assessing the university in terms of governance, programs, students, faculty, and research. Nyenrode obtained the EQUIS accreditation for the first time in 2000.
AMBA
Accreditation by the AMBA, a UK organization, is recognized as the global standard master’s in business administration. The AMBA accreditation is centered on impact, employability and learning outcomes. It focuses on programs that demonstrate the highest standards in teaching, learning and curriculum design and looks for innovation. AMBA is based in London and was founded in 1967. It is one of the three main global accreditation bodies in business education along with EQUIS in Brussels and AACSB in the US. AMBA styles itself as different from AASCB and EQUIS as it accredits a school’s portfolio of postgraduate management programs but does not accredit undergraduate programs. Nyenrode received in 2001 for the first time the AMBA accreditation for her MBA programs.
AACSB
The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) is an American organization to provide accreditation to business schools. Nyenrode is actively working towards obtaining the AACSB accreditation, which supports its mission to be a top European Business School. Obtaining AACSB accreditation is a multi-year process. AACSB wants to transform business education for global prosperity, which goes hand in hand with Nyenrode’s purpose to serve society by shaping responsible leaders.
NVAO
The Nederlands-Vlaamse Accreditatieorganisatie (Accreditation Organization of the Netherlands and Flanders, or NVAO) is responsible for assessing the quality of Dutch and Flemish higher education institutions and programs. Nyenrode received university status in 1982. The NVAO assesses once every six years the various bachelor and master programs. These peer evaluations thus serve a twofold purpose: accountability and improvement.
In line with the NVAO framework, each program conducts also a ‘development dialogue’ (ontwikkelgesprek) with the panel following the visitation in the context of external accreditation. The program decides the topic of dialogue. Examples are future developments and potential improvements. Although the development dialogue is part of the program review, the outcomes are not part of the accreditation assessment. On this page, we publish the reports of these discussions.
Development dialogue reports
CEA
Students who graduate from the Post-Master Accountancy Program at Nyenrode will become Chartered Accountants. The accountancy program is supervised by the Commissie Eindtermen Accountantsopleiding (Accountancy Program Learning Outcomes Committee or CEA). The CEA has placed Nyenrode under a normal supervision regime because of their positive assessment of the university in the past. According to CEA, the university has an adequate quality control system that ensures that the intended learning outcomes are safeguarded. In addition, the CEA program provides us with the information we need to assess whether the program meets the required terms regarding the learning outcomes. This means that the accreditation can be seen as permanent. Normal supervision entitles the program to respond to annual requests for basic information and participate in periodically policy discussions with CEA. In addition, CEA may request information for carrying out specific, targeted studies (e.g., thematic studies).
VRC
Graduates from the Executive Master of Finance and Control (EMFC) can affiliate to the Vereniging Register Controllers (Association of Register Controllers or VRC). The VRC is a Dutch national register for controllers and recognizes executive master programs in controlling. VRC members are knowledge-driven finance executives who are also entitled to use the title Register Controller (RC). The VRC was founded in 1988 as the Dutch institute for financial management and focuses on continued education of and support for top experts in financial management and collaborates with renowned educational institutions and finance organizations to that end.
