German Accreditation Council

The German Accreditation Council (GAC) (Akkreditierungsrat) is an independent body responsible for the accreditation of programs in the German higher education system. It is a joint institution of the German states for quality assurance in studies and teaching at German universities. The tasks of the foundation were laid down in a Interstate Treaty on the organization of a joint accreditation system to ensure the quality of teaching and learning at German higher education institutions, as agreed by the 16 states in 2017.

Before the reform, individual agencies such as ASIIN (Akkreditierungsagentur für Studiengänge der Ingenieurwissenschaften, Informatik, Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik), AQAS (Agency for Quality Assurance through Accreditation of Study Programs), ACQUIN (Akkreditierungs-, Certifizierungs- und Qualitätssicherungs-Institut) made the final decision and authorized accreditation. Since 2018, the GAC became the central decision body, while the individual agencies complete assessments (self-evaluation, expert panels, site visits) and make recommendations but the GAC makes the final accreditation decision. The agency’s role is to facilitate and advise -- they can still display their own agency logo on documentation (e.g., “Accredited by ASIIN on behalf of the GAC”), but the legal and official seal is the GAC’s. Agencies may also be authorized to award subject or European labels (e.g., ASIIN can award the EUR-ACE engineering label), and also accredits outside of Germany.

NOTE: Because the responsibility for accreditation decisions was somewhat recently transferred to the GAC, and they are working hard to reevaluate all programs, there may be some programs which have been previously accredited by other groups that are not yet approved. It is best to double check a program's accreditation with the university and the GAC to confirm its status before pursuing a degree through a particular university.