My own institution is, at least in English, unclear on what it is. It's not a university, but in English they will sometimes refer to themselves as such. They may these days more often say Institute since that is the official English designation, the one they write on the letterheads and website. I'm unclear on whether or not this school can award postgrad degrees - some deans seem to think they can, but I suspect they're fudging some bit of communication there. But the undergrad degrees are definitely 4 year and the school is definitely public (mostly)....
In any case, this year they/we will attempt once again to pass the certification process and become a full-fledged university. So I've been wondering what the certification process consists of. What gets measured? I assume there would be assorted concrete measures, like number of classrooms, nature of equipment, and so on, but what of the intangibles, the "academic standard" and so on? I'd be damn interesting to know what at minimum an educational institution must provide, do or be like to be counted as that kind of higher education.
(Full disclosure: I'm hoping it has something to do with research capability - or more exactly, the ability to create research capability in students.... that'd mean some interesting things for things like teaching methodology and classroom requirements.)