Federal Act
on Funding and Coordination of the Swiss
(Higher Education Act, HEdA)

¹ As the High­er Edu­ca­tion Coun­cil, the Swiss Con­fer­ence of High­er Edu­ca­tion In­sti­tu­tions has the fol­low­ing com­pos­i­tion:

a.

the des­ig­nated mem­ber of the Fed­er­al Coun­cil;

b.

four­teen mem­bers of the gov­ern­ments of can­tons that sub­sid­ise can­ton­al uni­versit­ies, uni­versit­ies of ap­plied sci­ences and uni­versit­ies of teach­er edu­ca­tion.

² Each Can­ton has only one seat on the High­er Edu­ca­tion Coun­cil. The In­ter­can­t­on­al Agree­ment on Co­oper­a­tion in High­er Edu­ca­tion de­term­ines how sub­sid­ising can­tons are rep­res­en­ted on the High­er Edu­ca­tion Coun­cil.

³ With­in the frame­work of this Act, the High­er Edu­ca­tion Coun­cil shall handle mat­ters per­tain­ing to the tasks per­formed by Can­tons that sub­sid­ise high­er edu­ca­tion in­sti­tu­tions. The fol­low­ing areas of re­spons­ib­il­ity may be trans­ferred to it un­der the terms of the Co­oper­a­tion Agree­ment:

a.

en­act­ment of reg­u­la­tions on:

1.

study levels and trans­itions between levels, uni­form names of titles as well as per­meab­il­ity and mo­bil­ity between and with­in tier-one uni­versit­ies, uni­versit­ies of ap­plied sci­ences and uni­versit­ies of teach­er edu­ca­tion,

2.

the hand­ling of qual­ity con­trol and ac­cred­it­a­tion at the re­quest of the Swiss Ac­cred­it­a­tion Coun­cil,

3.

re­cog­ni­tion of qual­i­fic­a­tions and pro­ced­ures for the re­cog­ni­tion of pri­or learn­ing,

4.

con­tinu­ing edu­ca­tion and train­ing in the form of uni­form gen­er­al reg­u­la­tions;

b.

de­term­in­a­tion of the char­ac­ter­ist­ics of dif­fer­ent types of high­er edu­ca­tion in­sti­tu­tion;

c.

for­mu­la­tion of re­com­mend­a­tions on the par­ti­cip­a­tion rights of mem­bers of high­er edu­ca­tion in­sti­tu­tions, par­tic­u­larly stu­dents, as well as on tu­ition and fees;

d.

for­mu­la­tion of re­com­mend­a­tions on the use of re­served des­ig­na­tions un­der Art­icle 29;

e.

is­su­ance of a res­ol­u­tion on co­ordin­a­tion of the en­tire Swiss high­er edu­ca­tion sec­tor and the al­loc­a­tion of tasks in par­tic­u­larly costly areas;

f.

de­cisions on the grant­ing of fed­er­al pro­ject con­tri­bu­tions;

g.

co­ordin­a­tion of any ne­ces­sary re­stric­tions on ac­cess to in­di­vidu­al study pro­grammes;

h.

over­arch­ing su­per­vi­sion of the bod­ies chosen by it;

i.

oth­er areas of re­spons­ib­il­ity arising from this Act.