Acredita CI will maintain standards and procedures that ensure the proper professional and ethical behavior of its staff and associates, who will have to communicate the possible conflicts of interests that may exist without the ability to participate in the appropriate deliberations or decisions, in order to guarantee the credibility of the accreditation processes and the trust in the decisions made by the accreditation councelors, members of commissions, presidents of committees, Evaluation Peers or employees.
Some conflicts of interests can arise: if in the last 5 years there has been a narrow and active relationship with the program or Institution that has requested the verdict of Acredita CI. A narrow and active relationship includes: to hold a post as a faculty member, office worker or consultant in the Institution or program; having applied to a position in the Institution or program; having been a student in the Institution; having received a honorary degree from the Institution; having relatives with up to two grades of kinship or affinity who study or are employees of the Institution or program; or an official ad honorem relationship with the Institution, such as, being a member of some council of the institution.
In relation to the performance of the Agency, as an entity, a conflict of interest is configured when the agency has acted as a consultant for a Higher Education Institution in any of its areas of action, a conflict that will cease to have effect after 5 years from the end of the consultancy, at which time it will be able to carry out engineering accreditation processes under international criteria or quality certification processes for its programs.
For the purposes of handling potential conflicts of interests, the Agency will use the procedure that is detailed next:
- Those that represent Acredita CI will sign a declaration of conflict of interests and confidentiality, indicating that they have read and understand both these policies and the standards of the Code of Ethics of this Agency, that they accept them and that they formally commit to respect them in full. This declaration will contain a list of the potential conflicts of interests that could arise.
- This declaration will be evaluated by the Council of Accreditation of the Agency in order to decide, on a case by case basis, whether a disqualification is reasonable or not.
- The directors of Acredita CI S.A. and the employees of the Agency will be entitled to act as observers in an evaluation visit, but not as evaluators or presidents of committees.
- A member of a Council of this Agency may not participate as an evaluating peer in the same Agency or in another private accrediting agency of the system. The Counselor may act as evaluator of the CNA.
- A record of conflict of interests will be kept for all those that are related with the accreditation processes.
- Any person shall refrain from comprising the corresponding party and attending any meeting of Acredita CI that may touch upon topics or decisions where a conflict of interests exists.