From September 30 to October 2, 2026, the Head of the Maritime Law Department at the Educational and Scientific Institute of Maritime Law and Management of NU “OMA”, PhD in Law Valentyn Vyshnevskyi, participated in a study visit to Heidelberg (Germany). The visit was organized by the Evaluation Agency of Baden-Württemberg (EVALAG) within the framework of the international INSPIRE project.

The INSPIRE project (Institutional Accreditation for Sustainable Progress, Innovation and Excellence) is implemented under the Erasmus+ program (“Capacity Building in Higher Education” strand). Its goal is to develop and implement in Ukraine a model of institutional accreditation for higher education institutions, aligned with the European Standards and Guidelines (ESG). Instead of fragmented accreditation of individual educational programs, the model implies a holistic evaluation of how a university ensures quality in management, teaching, research, and student support. The consortium brings together 17 partners from the EU, Norway, and Ukraine, including the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine and the National Agency for Higher Education Quality Assurance. The project coordinator is the Wrocław University of Science and Technology (Poland). NU “OMA” is one of eight Ukrainian partner universities.

During the visit, Valentyn Vyshnevskyi explored EVALAG’s experience in institutional and systemic accreditation. He also took part in working sessions and presented a report on stakeholder participation in systemic and program accreditation processes alongside European experts and representatives of Ukrainian partner universities.

The acquired experience will be used to improve the internal education quality assurance system at NU “OMA” and to prepare the academy for institutional accreditation.

The project is co-funded by the Erasmus+ program of the European Union (grant No. 101237884).