Complaints and appeals procedures for HEI evaluations
Higher education institutions (HEIs) have the possibility to complain or appeal about FINEEC's evaluation activities for HEIs in accordance with the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area (ESG 2015).
Complaint procedure for all higher education evaluations
HEIs have the possibility of making a complaint about FINEEC's higher education evaluation activities. HEIs can use the complaint procedure to express their dissatisfaction with the way the evaluation process was carried out or with the actions of the persons who carried out the evaluation, i.e. to give feedback on the evaluation activities.
Principles
- The complaint must concern FINEEC's higher education evaluation process or the actions of the persons who conducted the evaluation.
- The complaint is made by the HEI. FINEEC does not process anonymous complaints.
- The complaint must be made within six months of the publication of the evaluation, audit, or accreditation it concerns.
- FINEEV will only process complaints that are within the scope of FINEEC's official duties.
Process for handling complaints
- The HEIs makes the complaint using FINEEC's questionnaire.
- FINEEC aims to process all complaints within one month of receiving them.
- After the complaint has been reviewed, FINEEC contacts the HEI’s designated contact person.
- Each complaint is first examined by FINEEC’s Director or the Head of the Higher Education and Liberal Adult Education Unit. They determine whether the response should be prepared by FINEEC staff or referred to the Higher Education Evaluation Committee or the Committee for Engineering Education.
- A written response is provided for every written complaint. The scope of the response is determined by the scope of the matter under consideration.
Audit appeal procedure
An HEI audited or re-audited by FINEEC may request a re-assessment of the outcome. The purpose of the procedure is to ensure the equal treatment of HEIs in the audits and to guarantee that the decision-making of the Higher Education Evaluation Committee is fair regarding the outcome of the audit.
The request may be targeted at the following audit results decided on by the Higher Education Evaluation Committee:
1) The HEI does not pass the audit, and a re-audit is required; or
2) The HEI does not pass the re-audit.
The request may be based on the grounds that the audit has not been performed in compliance with the audit manual, and that the audit process, as performed, brings into question the fair and equal
treatment of higher education institutions.
The request shall be filed in accordance with the procedure described in this document. The request can only be filed by the HEI whose audit result the request concerns. The decisions concerning audit results issued by the Higher Education Evaluation Committee are considered as expert opinions. They are not administrative decisions and appeals pursuant to the Administrative Judicial Procedure Act cannot be filed to challenge them.
Filing and processing the request
Delivery of a request
A request for a review of the audit result must be filed within 30 days of receiving the result. The day on which the result was communicated is not included in this period. If the request is not filed within the designated period, it will not be processed.
Requests must be sent to FINEEC by e-mail using the address kirjaamo@karvi.fi.
The form and content of the request
The request must be made in writing. The request must include the following information:
- The audit result for which a review is requested;
- The grounds on which a review is requested.
Documents to support the request shall be attached to the request. The HEI cannot attach to the request materials that were not available to the audit team during the audit process.
Contact details
The request must include an address to which notifications on the matter can be sent. The rector of the HEI, or a representative appointed by the rector, must sign the request.
The request must also include the name of the HEI's contact person for the duration of the processing of the request. The director of FINEEC will appoint a FINEEC contact person who will keep the institution up to date on the progress of the review.
Supplements to the request
If the request is incomplete, the higher education institution will have 14 days to provide supplements to it.
Processing of the request
The request will be processed by an expert panel appointed by the Evaluation Council, that operates under FINEEC, for the duration of the appointment. FINEEC will deliver the request and the attached documents to the expert panel. The following materials will be sent to the panel when necessary if they are not included in the materials sent by the HEI:
- the audit report;
- the materials delivered by the HEI for the audit, and the additional materials available to the audit team; and
- the working documents of the audit team.
When the expert panel has reviewed the written materials, it will hear the HEI and if needed any third parties before issuing a resolution.
Requests are usually processed within three months of filing the request with FINEEC.
Statement of the expert panel
The expert panel processing the request will consider the audit as a whole. If a procedural error that could have brought into question the fairness and equality of the audit result is discovered, the expert panel may return the audit result to the Higher Education Evaluation Committee for re-processing. In its statement, the expert panel must then identify the procedural error that was the reason for returning the audit result to the Committee for re-processing. In all other cases, the audit result will not be returned to the Committee for re-processing.
If the HEI has not included the necessary materials to support the request, or if the materials included are new materials that were not available to the audit team during the audit process, the request will not be processed.
Expert panel for audit appeals
The expert panel is an independent body, and it works free of the influence of any third parties such as higher education institutions, ministries or other stakeholders. When working in the expert panel, the team members are independent experts who do not represent their background organisations. Instead, they work to promote the equal treatment of all audited HEIs and fair decision-making by the Higher Education Evaluation Committee.
The work of the expert panel is supported by FINEEC experts who have not participated in the audit process for the HEI that requested a review and are not otherwise disqualified.
The HEI submitting the request has the opportunity to comment on the composition of the expert group from the perspective of conflicts of interest.
FINEEC’s Evaluation Council will appoint a new expert panel for the audit appeals procedure at the beginning of its term of office.
Further information on the procedures
