Innovation, professionalisation and evaluation: implications for quality management in higher education

At first sight, discussing the relevance of innovation, professionalisation and evaluation for higher education quality management seems to be redundant. Universities can legitimately be expected to be innovation-friendly, to pursue professionalism in their approaches to teaching and to be appreciative towards an evidence-supported management practice that relies on sound evaluation research methods. At second sight however, things prove to be blurry. For instance, evaluation practice in the field of higher education, with its focus on predefined quality indicators can in the worst case impede teaching innovation that requires more openness and error-tolerance. The paper thus discusses innovation, professionalisation and evaluation as interrelated concepts that can in the best case contribute to an adaptive and agile quality management environment which is context sensitive and creates trust in the employed mechanisms and those who are in charge to perform them.