The NATO SP COE Quality Assurance Policy

The main effort of NATO SP COE is to deliver the highest quality courses and activities by striving in unison for a continuous improvement. In order to meet this desired level of quality, NATO SP COE sets up processes and procedures that reflect NATO Quality Standards and the goals of COE’s Strategic Plan. In this context, all processes and products of the NATO SP COE must comply with a common set of quality standards identified by the Quality Management System (QMS).

The QMS is a complete set of quality standards, procedures and responsibilities, which explains and covers all phases of the courses/activities (including all aspects of support: e.g. administrative and logistic issues), from identifying and meeting the stakeholders/internal requirements to planning, implementing, monitoring and reviewing to improve.

The QMS is supported by documents that describe the policy, the system, the structure, the responsibilities, the jobs/functions and outlines procedures. One of the main supporting documents of the QMS is Quality Assurance (QA) Policy, and this policy is a NATO SP COE intellectual property.

On 20 November 2018, the NATO SP COE, after a process lasted over 18 months, has been awarded with the Quality Assurance Accreditation, as a result of the thorough in-site visit of an HQ SACT specialized team. Core processes and procedures of the NATO SP COE were reviewed and identified as being aligned with NATO Quality Standards at each level, to ensure the quality of education and training. This is one of the biggest achievements for a COE: the NATO SP COE has been able to reach this goal after less than three years from the accreditation as a NATO body! The unconditional accreditation expires 19 November 2024.