ABET is a nonprofit, non-governmental agency that accredits programs in applied and natural science, computing, engineering, and engineering technology. They provide voluntary, specialized accreditation for post-secondary programs within degree-granting institutions already recognized by national or regional institutional accreditation agencies or national education authorities worldwide.

The Association for Engineering Education of Russia was one of the founding members of the Independent Accreditation Center (IAC), which was the first non-governmental agency for the evaluation of engineering educational programs. In 2001 the AEER initiated the revision of the accreditation criteria and procedures to make them consistent with the world experience in quality assurance in higher education. In 2002, the AEER developed new criteria and procedures for public accreditation of engineering programs.