The ASPIRE initiative: Excellence in assessment

Ensuring medical graduates are competent is of central importance to a number of stakeholders including medical schools, faculty, regulators, employers, students and last but not least patients and their carers. Consequently, assessment of competence is one of the main areas of focus for medical education. Recognising the significance of excellence in student assessment the ASPIRE Board identified this as one of the initial themes. The aim of the ASPIRE initiative is to encourage and reward excellence. In this article the process of agreeing the criteria for excellence in assessment is described along with examples from successful applications.