The Committee approved the following renewal applications:

• AQU Catalunya - Catalan University Quality Assurance Agency (Spain)
• NVAO - Accreditation Organisation of the Netherlands and Flanders
• SKVC -Centre for Quality Assessment in Higher Education (Lithuania)

Furthermore, the Committee adopted the additions to the Policy on the Use and Interpretation of the ESG, clarifying the scope of the ESG and addressing the clear separation between external quality assurance and other activities.

See all QAA's listed on the Register

This year, exceptionally, because of the EQUIP Focus Group, all EHEA countries were invited.

The keynote presentations focussed on the main challenges in assuring and improving quality in Europe from three different perspectives; of the European Commission, the German Länder and Poland.

The EQUIP Focus Group part of the event examined the challenges in QA related to meeting the expectations of the ESG identified within the EQUIP project. After a presentation of the preliminary EQUIP Study results, participants were invited for a Word Café session (five thematic tables, facilitated by five different experts, which participants would visit successively). This was then concluded by a plenary session, summarising the lessons learned from the World Café, followed by an open discussion on recommendations for developing higher education through the use of the ESG.

Other topics of the Members' Dialogue were the Discussion on the EQAR Strategy 2018-2022, the Presentation and Discussion on Approach to External QA and Other Activities by Registered Agencies.

To view or download the presentations of the event

To view photos from the event

More about the EQUIP project

The new address is as follows:
Aarlenstraat 22 Rue d'Arlon
1050 Brussels
Belgium

The office is sublet from the Netherlands House for Education and Research (Neth-ER). Next to a number of Dutch universities and smaller organisations, the German
Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) is another subtenant at Neth-ER.

How to find us

1 July 2017: Having held numerous leadership positions in higher education during the last decades, Dittrich is taking over the position for the first time following changes in the EQAR organisational structure and his election by the General Assembly in Malta.

Karl Dittrich started his career as a political science researcher and lecturer in Leiden, Florence and Maastricht. He chaired the Executive Board of the University of Maastricht from the 1990s until the early 2000s. He was the inaugural chairman of the Dutch-Flemish Accreditation Organisation (NVAO) from 2005 to 2012. In that capacity, he also held functions on the ENQA Board and in the European Consortium for Accreditation (ECA). Recently, Karl Dittrich has chaired the Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU), a position from which he will retire in October 2017. As VSNU Chairman, Dittrich has also sat on the Council of EUA.

In his speech to EQAR members before his election, on 25 May 2017, he emphasised EQAR’s role in supporting and strengthening European ideals and cooperation in the field of higher education: “It is important for the European higher education community to continue its path of dialogue and cooperation despite some nationalist tendencies. EQAR guarantees the quality of the quality assurance agencies and promotes trust in and between them, a precondition for recognition and mobility of students and staff. Exchange and mobility promote understanding between European citizens and help us build strong, democratic and equal societies.”

29 June 2017: Apart from reviewing numerous applications, the Register Committee continued its discussions on the policy document on external quality assurance and other activities of QAA's. Before the start of the meeting, EQAR organised an induction/training session for new Register Committee members.

Newly admitted to the Register:

• ANQA - National Centre for Professional Education Quality (Armenia)
• IQAA - Independent Kazakh Agency for Quality Assurance in Education
• IAAR - Independent Agency for Accreditation and Rating (Kazakhstan)

Approved renewal applications:

• AEQES - Agence pour l'Evaluation de la Qualité de l'Enseignement Supérieur (Belgium)
• ASHE - Agency for Science and Higher Education (Croatia)
• HCERES - High Council for Evaluation of Research and Higher Education (France)
• FINEEC - The Finnish Education Evaluation Centre
• ASIIN - Akkreditierungsagentur für Studiengänge der Ingenieurwissenschaften, der Informatik, der Naturwissenschaften und der Mathematik (Germany)
• FIBAA - Foundation for International Business Administration Accreditation (Germany)
• AQAS - Agency for Quality Assurance through Accreditation of Study Programmes (Germany)

Other news from the Register Committee

On 1 July, EQAR takes leave of Eric Froment, who served as Chair of the EQAR Register Committee for five years. The EQAR General Assembly, the Executive Board and the Register Committee members thanked Eric Froment wholeheartedly for his dedication and contribution to EQAR over the last years.

Six new Register Committee members will start their two-year mandate on 1 July. Incoming members Maria Arminda Bragança de Miranda, Riita Kaarina Pyykkö, Izabela Suika, Beate Treml, Anne Verreth and Steffen Westergard Andersen will replace outgoing members Josep Grifoll, Júlio Pedrosa, Olav Øye, Lucien Bollaert, Dáire Keogh and Dorte Kristoffersen, these last three having served on the Register Committee since 2008. Eric Froment, outgoing Chair of the Register Committee, thanked the outgoing members for their devotion, commitment and hard work during all these years.

See all QAA's listed on the Register

• Karl Dittrich was unanimously elected as EQAR President with a mandate from 1 July 2017 to 30 June 2020. He will chair the Executive Board as well as the Register Committee, represent EQAR externally and ensure coherence in the work of the EQAR bodies.  On 1 July, the Register Committee will take leave of its current Chair, Eric Froment, who has been Chair of the Register Committee since the last five years.
  

• Greece was welcomed as new Governmental Member and participated in their first General Assembly. EQAR now counts 39 Governmental Members, which are involved in the overall governance of EQAR.

• The Chair of the Register Committee provided an update on the Register Committee’s work since the General Assembly in Amsterdam on 7 March 2016. 

• Blazhe Todorovski (ESU)) was by-elected to the Executive Board as replacement member for Fernando Galán Palomares, who resigned from his position on the Executive Board.

• Six new Register Committee members were approved by the General Assembly. Their two-year mandate will start on 1 July 2017. Incoming members Maria Arminda Bragança de Miranda, Riita Kaarina Pyykkö, Izabela Suika, Beate Treml, Anne Verreth and Steffen Westergard Andersen will replace outgoing members, Josep Grifoll, Júlio Pedrosa, Olav Øye, Lucien Bollaert, Daire Keogh, Dorte Kristoffersen,  these last three having served on the Register Committee since 2008.

• Other items on the agenda were the Policy on External Quality Assurance and Other Activities, the Work Plan 2017/18, the accounts for the financial year 2016, the annual report, the election of observers on the Register Committee (Belgium-Flemish community, France, Greece, Liechtenstein and Germany), the budget 2017 and 2018 and the revision of the membership fees.
  
  Read more about the General Assembly

The key considerations have been discussed with participants at this year’s European Quality Assurance Forum (EQAF) in Ljubljana (Slovenia). They have been further disseminated for feedback and presented at the EQAR Members’ Dialogue in Oslo (Norway) and during the workshop of the BFUG Implementation Working Group (WG 2) in Nice.

The key considerations reaffirm that the ESG are the basis for all QA in the EHEA, and thus also for cross-border QA. They are non-biding in character and come to support and inspire higher education institutions and quality assurance agencies that engage in, or consider engaging in, cross-border QA activities.

In addition to higher education institutions and quality assurance agencies they might serve as a useful tool also for governments when reviewing their legal frameworks with a view to allowing their institutions to make use of a suitable EQAR-registered agency in fulfilling their external QA requirements.

Read here the Key considerations for Cross-border Quality Assurance.

Newly admitted to the Register:

• ACPUA - Aragon Agency for Quality Assurance and Strategic Foresight in Higher Education (Spain)

ACPUA is the second agency that was admitted based on the ESG 2015, following MusiQuE on 6 June 2016.

Approved renewal applications (the first renewals based on the ESG 2015):

• AAQ - Swiss Agency of Accreditation and Quality Assurance
• ACQUIN - Accreditation, Certification and Quality Assurance Institute (Germany)
• AI - The Danish Accreditation Institution
• ZEvA - Central Evaluation and Accreditation Agency (Germany)

See all QAAs listed on the Register

Database of quality assurance results and decisions
Following up on EQAR’s Strategic Plan and current Work Plan, the EQAR Secretariat prepared a Report and Operational Model of a Database of External Quality Assurance Results. The data in the report were based on surveys sent out in 2016 to potential users, as well as a dialogue with existing initiatives. The report was presented and discussed at the EQAR Members' Dialogue. Further steps will be considered taking into account these discussions.

Within the event, members also discussed the European Approach for Quality Assurance of Joint Programmes, Key Consideration for Cross-Border QA and learned about the new developments in the automatic recognition of qualifications in Western Balkans, the quality assurance of transnational higher education as well as developments within the national legal frameworks for external quality assurance in Switzerland, Netherlands and the Belgium–Flemish Community.

To download presentations from the Members' Dialogue