Heriot-Watt University was granted its Royal Charter by Act of Parliament in 1966.
It is inspected by the UK Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) to ensure it satisfies UK standards for higher education.
It is approved by the US Department of Education.
Its internal structures and systems maintain the quality of its awards:
the Postgraduate Studies Committee reviews programmes every five years;
the Quality and Standards Forum ensures that programmes and courses comply with QAA frameworks for standards and quality;
boards of examiners ensure that every assessment is at an appropriate standard. The boards include independent external examiners from other universities.
EBS does not support accreditation by private sector, self-appointed accrediting bodies, due to the focus they place on arbitrary inputs rather than the quality of student outputs.