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Highlights: • An innovative procedure for internal competence-based quality management has been developed. • The pilot study shows that competence-based evaluation raises awareness of a programme's quality. • It encourages invaluable discussions and strengthens the programme's competence profile. • Especially for social/personal competences, the procedure helps to clarify the programme's goal. Abstract Motivated by the 'shift from teaching to learning' in the European Higher Education Area, international researchers, quality assurance agencies and practitioners undertook a joint project in order to develop a new procedure for internal quality management focussing on students' competences (programme learning outcomes). The procedure consists of three steps: defining competences, screening competences and enhancing competences. An interdisciplinary team conducted a pilot study with the Postgraduate Programme Renewable Energy at Oldenburg University to validate this approach. The results lead to the conclusion that the procedure raises awareness of the study programme's quality and encourages discussions between students, faculty and academic staff. The most important contribution is to strengthen the study programme's competence profile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • The REO program covers Renewable Energy technologies, systems and socio-economics. • The modular curriculum of REO can be adapted flexibly to the students' needs. • The blended-learning format of REO enables time- and location independent studies. • The didactics of REO are based on concepts of active and cooperative learning. • These concepts address the needs and the capacity of diverse groups of students. Abstract In recent years, there is an increasing demand for flexible, time- and location-independent academic study programs. For this reason, blended-learning concepts have been and are being developed in many disciplines. Such programs can be studied mainly online and part-time, from all over the world, supplemented by short on-campus periods. In the field of Renewable Energy education, the blended-learning master's degree program Renewable Energy Online has been developed at the University of Oldenburg, Germany. This article aims at presenting the concept of this program. Thereby, it focuses on learning-teaching concepts, which address the motivation of students and the needs and resources of diverse groups of students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]