Quality assurance at Natural Sciences involves three mutually supportive processes: 

Ongoing quality assurance	Ongoing day-to-day quality assurance in the contexts of lecturer-student interactions as well as in education and management-level forums.
Degree programme quality assurance processes Holistic view	A holistic view of the individual degree programmes in the form of an annual status review report on quality assurance and degree programme evaluation.
Consolidating cross-organisational processes Strategic objectives	A cross-organisational process linking quality assurance at the degree programme level with faculty/university level and supporting the strategic objectives.

At Natural Sciences, the quality assurance processes support and structure the day-to-day, ongoing quality assurance taking place in the academic environments. The high level of commitment from students and lecturers to the degree programmes ensures that any problems are continuously addressed and followed up on.  

In connection with the annual status review, the quality assurance processes support the academic environments in taking an overall look at the entire degree programme and deciding on actions needed to overcome any challenges. The annual status review is based on existing management information to ensure alignment with the ongoing quality assurance work and degree programme evaluations. The annual status review also follows up on development initiatives implemented since the last status review and/or degree programme evaluation. 

The degree programme evaluations are conducted every five years and support a subject-specific dialogue about development potentials with external experts and degree programme management. The students and the academic environments are key to both quality assurance processes.  The degree programme evaluations differ from the annual status reviews through being more in-depth and based on more extensive data, which is discussed by a wider group of people, including external stakeholders. 

As a follow-up on the annual status review meeting and the degree programme evaluation dialogue meeting, minutes are prepared as well as a degree programme action plan. The action plan forms the basis of the follow-up processes at degree programme level. 

Based on the status review and evaluation meetings, a degree programme report is prepared at faculty level and submitted to the faculty leadership team. The faculty leadership team discusses the status of the quality of the faculty’s degree programmes, decides on an action plan for initiatives at faculty level and prepares a statement by management that is fed back to the degree programme level. The degree programme report forms the basis for follow-up and subsequent discussions by the Education Committee, the senior management team and the AU board. 

In this way, the quality assurance processes help ensure continuous improvements.  

The annual status review and degree programme evaluation processes are described in more detail on the specific subpages.