ACE Impact Accreditation

The Royal Society of Biology is committed to promoting the biosciences as subjects of choice to students in schools, colleges and universities.

Through our international programme level consultancy and accreditation schemes, we support and recognise excellence in biology teaching worldwide and champion a biology curriculum that challenges students, encourages their passion for the subject, and prepares them for work at the highest levels.

Our International Consultancy service uses a panel of experts to guide the design and implementation of a tailored programme of curriculum development. This includes ongoing support over the period of consultancy, in the form of review and advice, as well as identifying aspects of good practice which can be built on.

Accreditation is not an immediate outcome of consultancy, but consultancy can help produce programmes of international repute, ready to undergo accreditation.

International accreditation by the RSB highlights academic excellence and is an acknowledgement by an external body that a degree programme meets a defined set of overarching criteria, developed to address the skills gap between academic study and employment in bioscience research.

Graduates from accredited degree programmes are therefore equipped with well-rounded knowledge and skillsets, making them highly employable both within and beyond their chosen field.

Programme accreditation follows a multi-step procedure:

• A self-evaluation document prepared by the programme team submitted along with supporting evidence.
• A peer review of the programme(s) put forward (incorporating dialogue with staff and students from your institution), by a panel of experts in the field.
• A report summarising the results of the peer review, with any conditions and recommendations for further development.

This process highlights areas of excellence and suggests potential improvements to benefit the institution, its staff and its students, as well as being a recognition of international standards of bioscience education.

Start a conversation with us at accreditation@rsb.org.uk to share details about your programmes so that we can provide advice about consultancy and accreditation.

More information about our consultancy and accreditation services can also be found in our ACE Impact International handbook. We welcome applications from programmes taught in languages other than English; however, please note that key documents must be supplied in English for assessment purposes.

ACE Impact Handbook

The Royal Society of Biology only provides programme level accreditation. Please be aware that programme level and institution level accreditation are different and independent processes. Programme level accreditation, which considers the curriculum of individual degree programmes, does not require institution level accreditation, which focuses more on the process of quality assurance.