Rankings and accreditations

The high nationally and internationally acknowledged quality of its work in teaching, research and executive education is of crucial importance to the University of St.Gallen. Ranking results and accreditations provide us with an information basis and serve as measures for quality assurance and continuous quality development.

International accreditations

Its integrative education at the highest academic level earned the University of St.Gallen the seals of approval of the EQUIS accreditation in 2001, the AACSB accreditation in 2003 and the AMBA accreditation in 2019. Thus, besides the Swiss national accreditation, the University of St.Gallen is in possession of the three international accreditations that are most relevant to its fields of expertise. HSG now holds the so-called "triple crown".

The latest EQUIS reaccreditation process was concluded in summer 2023. AACSB renewed its accreditation of the University of St.Gallen in autumn 2018.

National accreditations

In Switzerland, all institutions of tertiary education regularly underwent a quality audit until 2015. In 2014, the University of St.Gallen satisfied the requirements of the third quality audit of public universities in Switzerland. With the entry into force of the Federal Act on Funding and Coordination of the Swiss Higher Education Sector (HEdA) in early 2015, the accreditation of Swiss universities was subject to new regulations. Now, all the public or private institutions of higher education which want to be perceived as a university, Fachhochschule or Pädagogische Hochschule must undergo an "institutional accreditation". This institutional accreditation remains one of the requirements to be satisfied in order to be granted federal funds.

Rankings

For several years, various organisations have drawn up and published media-effective rankings of universities. These university rankings can now be found for all university fields of activity: teaching, research and executive education. The objects of rankings are individual degree courses, disciplines, programme types or the university as a whole. There are rankings at a national level, at the level of the language area, at a European level and at a global level.

Ranking objectives and methods

With regard to the ranking objectives and methods, the diversity is similarly great to that among the ranking providers. In this respect, it is not only the educational institutions as a public provider which play a role, but increasingly also the media. Accordingly, what is understood by quality and education covers a wide range and diversity. The same applies to the measuring methods.