IMI provides executive development education to post-experience organisation leaders. As a long established provider of executive education and training, with experience of providing customised programmes for clients as well as a variety of open education programmes, IMI is proud that its approach to quality has been consistently rigorous for decades. Providing programmes which have led to Bachelor and Master degrees of prestigious Irish and UK universities and awarding bodies, has given IMI a comprehensive and in depth appreciation of quality standards in a variety of contexts.
As a current provider of programmes which lead to University College Cork (UCC) awards, and as an aspirant to making awards of other reputable awarding bodies, quality and quality assurance is at the core of all our activities. It sets benchmarks for our performance; it establishes expectations for our clients and our learners on all types of programmes. It identifies indicators which demonstrate excellence, and it provides a coherent documented system which can be implemented in a consistent and supportive way, and whose implementation can be evidenced, ensuring excellence in our services to our clients.
Internal Quality Assurance
IMI has established an integrated, whole organisation internal quality system. As a provider of programmes which lead to awards on the National Framework of Qualifications (NFQ), via UCC, and also a provider of a large volume of programmes of executive education which lead to certificates of attendance or participation, IMI has standards and processes to ensure the quality of all of its provision – accredited and unaccredited. The IMI Quality Ecosystem is based on QQI’s CORE Statutory Quality Assurance Guidelines and the 2015 Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area (known as the ESG) and also draws on standards established for executive business education by bodies such as, but not limited to, AACSB, AMBA, EFMD, EQUIS. For programmes leading to awards of UCC, it dovetails with UCC academic governance requirements. Using the lens of the Core Statutory Guidelines as well as the ESG, where relevant, IMI has developed internal quality assurance policies and procedures to guide the discharge all of its academic and corporate responsibilities. The policies and procedures have been grouped under “ten pillars”; standards have been set for each pillar, and the comprehensive, whole organisation, internal quality assurance tools – policies, procedures, guidelines, etc. are articulated to map to these standards.
Living within and adhering to UCC’s Quality Ecosystem
With regard to the provision of programmes which lead to awards of UCC, IMI applies all UCC policy and procedures in respect of those programmes. A comprehensive academic governance and oversight framework is in place to support the provision and ensure compliance with all University standards and requirements. IMI is guided by the commitment of the UCC Quality Enhancement Policy to [work] collaboratively to develop effective evaluation approaches that allow critical reflection on achievement of strategic goals and objectives and an appraisal of the known and anticipated needs of stakeholders, cognisant that IMI has a distinct set of stakeholders in its company members and in its diverse client base. IMI’s programme participant mix is approximately 25% on programmes leading to awards on the NFQ and 75% leading to IMI certification1.