Chile implemented a new national quality assurance system for its higher education institutions in 2006 that included a set of policies and procedures for graduate education. Ten years after its implementation, this study looks at the perceived alignments and misalignments between the national accreditation goals and the graduate programs’ visions of improvement. By using the concept of loosely coupled systems, we studied eight science and technology master’s and doctoral programs at four research-oriented Chilean universities. In total, we conducted 26 interviews, visited all campus sites, and analyzed related documents. The results indicate that the national accreditation system improved academic quality across programs by strengthening the influence of university central administrations and raising faculty productivity standards. In particular, the accreditation meant a push for internationalization, which was welcomed at all institutional levels. However, after a decade, the accreditation system seems misaligned with programs’ new improvement efforts, such as the promotion of multidisciplinary work. To some extent, accreditation standards, based on strong disciplinary orientations, penalize a diverse student body and curricular innovation and do not consider the challenges of publishing multidisciplinary research.

智利于 2006 年为其高等教育机构实施了新的国家质量保证体系，其中包括一套研究生教育政策和程序。实施十年后，这项研究着眼于国家认证目标与研究生课程改进愿景之间的感知一致性和不一致。我们利用松耦合系统的概念，在智利四所研究型大学攻读了八个科技硕士和博士项目。我们总共进行了 26 次采访，访问了所有校园站点，并分析了相关文件。结果表明，国家认证体系通过加强大学中央管理部门的影响力和提高教师生产力标准，提高了各个项目的学术质量。特别是，认证意味着推动国际化，这在所有机构层面都受到欢迎。然而，十年后，认证体系似乎与项目的新改进工作不一致，例如促进多学科工作。在某种程度上，基于强烈的学科取向的认证标准惩罚了多样化的学生群体和课程创新，并且没有考虑出版多学科研究的挑战。