The Higher Education Evaluation and Accreditation Council of Taiwan (HEEACT) has released a new Overseas Program Accreditation Handbook, updating the edition first issued in 2020. This update aligns with the fourth cycle of HEEACT’s program accreditation and reflects evolving expectations for quality assurance in a changing higher education environment.

Continuity of the Standards Framework

The 2026 HEEACT Overseas Program Accreditation Standards retain the same three-standard structure introduced in 2020:

1. Program Development, Governance, and Improvement

2. Faculty and Teaching

3. Students and Learning

While maintaining this structure, the 2026 update tightens expectations related to institutional alignment, operational resilience, academic standards and integrity, and social responsibility.

Key Emphases in 2026 (Compared with 2020)

Across the framework, the 2026 Standards place stronger and more explicit emphasis on the following areas:

• Stronger alignment to institutional direction and external change
  Programs are expected to establish mechanisms that adapt mission, goals, and strategies in response to internal and external environments, including institutional development directions.

• Explicit sustainability orientation
  A clear expectation is introduced that programs collaborate with their higher education institution to implement strategies responding to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs).

• Operational resilience and risk preparedness
  Programs are expected to establish and implement response mechanisms for emergencies or crises to support continuity and stable operations.

• Academic standards and integrity
  The 2026 Standards strengthen requirements for mechanisms that guide and assure the quality of students’ academic work, including thesis, dissertation, capstone, or other milestone processes, and introduce clearer expectations for promoting academic integrity.

• Student development breadth
  Student support is framed more explicitly beyond coursework, including extracurricular learning, life skills training, and lifelong learning and career development supports.

• More structured evidence expectations
  The 2026 framework embeds “Fact Sheets (Required)” more systematically across standards to reinforce evidence-based review and support consistent self-assessment and panel evaluation.

Supporting Implementation and Review Readiness

The updated handbook and accompanying standards provide expanded guidance on standards, sub-standards, core indicators, and associated documentation expectations, including required fact sheets and suggested evidence to support institutional self-assessment and review processes.

HEEACT welcomes higher education institutions and overseas programs to refer to the updated handbook when preparing for accreditation and continuous improvement activities.

For further information, please refer to the HEEACT OPA webpage.