Quality Enhancement and Standards Review (QESR) is our review method for higher education institutions in Scotland for the academic sessions 2022-23 and 2023-24. It forms Phase 1 of a two-phase approach to external institutional quality review which is being developed within the context of a major Scottish Funding Council (SFC) review, Coherent Provision and Sustainability: A Review of Tertiary Education and Research. As a result of this review, SFC is currently working with the Scottish sector to develop tertiary arrangements for quality assurance and enhancement which will be implemented from the start of academic session 2024-25. 

Within Phase 1 of the developing quality enhancement arrangements, QESR focuses on a higher education institution’s management of its academic quality and standards and how that institution's processes embed an enhancement-led approach to improving learning, teaching and the wider student experience. 

QESR also considers an institution’s outcome under the previous review method, Enhancement-led Institutional Review (ELIR), and the subsequent activity to address the findings. 

QESR is complemented in Phase 1 by Institutional Liaison Meetings (ILM).

More information about QESR and ILM, and the previous ELIR review method, is available on the QAA Scotland website.