Enhancing the quality of business and management education is a primary focus in ABS's policy role.
ABS is highly active at a national and european level on behalf of its members
UK
At a national level, ABS has long enjoyed a close relationship with the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA):
Professor Mary Carswell, Director of Derbyshire Business School and member of the ABS Executive is also a member of the QAA Committee charged to develop a new Code of Practice on the Assessment of Students.
Jonathan Slack, Chief Executive of ABS also sits on the QAA's Steering Group for Benchmarking Academic Standards.
ABS also recently participated in a QAA exercise comparing the national subject benchmarks for business and management with the so called 'Tuning' competence statements emanating from the European Commission.
With the 'Bologna' process gathering momentum across Europe, ABS believes it highly important to help QAA influence the direction of these increasingly pan-European developments.
These events led to a useful mapping document which is available from QAA.
Europe
At a European level, ABS operates in its influencial role in the group of sixteen associations that make up the European Quality Link (EQUAL).EQUAL is the think-tank for the European Quality Improvement Scheme (EQUIS).
Jonathan Slack is the Vice-Chair of EQUAL.
During the year, ABS has led the development of an EQUAL paper on collaborative provision which directly informed the policy and practice of EQUIS in this area
ABS has also been invited by the European Foundation for Management Development (efmd) to influence the development of their new European Programme Accreditation Scheme (EPAS) and this offer has been accepted.
ABS is formally represented on the EQUIS Steering Committee and the EQUIS Awarding Body and a current member of the ABS Executive, Professor Howard Thomas, Dean of Warwick Business School, has been elected as Vice President of efmd.
This high level of European engagement enables ABS to provide high quality advice to UKschools that are interested in pursuing EQUIS accreditation.