University of The Aegean - Academic Evaluation

Academic Evaluation

An external evaluation of all academic departments in Greek universities will be conducted by the Hellenic Quality Assurance and Accreditation Agency (HQAA), aiming to provide the Ministry of Education with guidelines for the substantial restructuring or even discontinuation of departments and programmes of study ("ATHENA" Plan for Tertiary Education). The internal evaluation process of every department will be organised by the Internal Quality Assurance Unit (in greek: ΜοΔιΠ) of the university.

• Department of Sociology (2012)
• Department of Product and Systems Design (2012)
• Department of Environmental Studies (2012)

An older European University Association evaluation (December 2005) highlights the university's serious shortcomings "while it is undoubtedly the case that all universities are handicapped by the effects of this State interference, the impact at the University of the Aegean is particularly great because of its multi-island structure. It was also apparent that there are insufficient permanent staff overall, and indeed that many of the permanent academic staff are not in a position where they are able to concentrate full-time on their work within the university. The average amount of academic staff travel raises some serious concerns. Indeed all the academic staff are obliged to make difficult choices in their professional and personal lives which entail either accepting a lower standard of living in order to remain on the islands, or juggling life between a city and islands."

Despite the "impressive output" the lack of strategic design and effective prioritization in research activities was evident at the time, the notable remark being that "research seems to be driven by the interests of individual academics, and more by accident than institutional design will it address priority issues for the institution or region".