European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education


Headquarters	Brussels, Belgium
Founded	2000 ^[1]
Members	41 Full members 2 Candidate members
Affiliates	45 Affiliates
Working language	English
Board	Padraig Walsh (President) Helka Kekäläinen (Vice-President) Josep Grifoll (Vice-President) Caty Duykaerts Tove Blytt Holmen Rafael Llavori Christoph Grolimund Anthony McClaran Daisuke Motoki
Director	Maria Kelo
Website	www.enqa.eu

The European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA) came into being in 2000 as the European Network for Quality Assurance in Higher Education. In 2004, it was transformed from a network into an association.^[2]

ENQA was created following the Recommendation of the Council on European co-operation in quality assurance in higher education of 1998 and the Bologna Process in 1999.^[3] It was deemed necessary to create an entity to share and develop experience on quality assurance in higher education across the Bologna signatory countries.^[4]

Organisation

ENQA is composed of three bodies:

- The General Assembly gathers the members and affiliates agencies of ENQA. It is the entity of the association which makes the main decisions;

- The Board is composed of a President, two Vice-presidents, a Treasurer and four to six members; the Board is the executive body of ENQA;

- The Secretariat, which takes care of the day-to-day organisation of the association (administration, policy, accounting, publications), is composed of four employees.

ENQA is a membership association and its members are quality assurance agencies operating in Higher Education in the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). There are two types of membership: an agency can be a Full Member or an Associate Member. In addition to membership, ENQA has another type of formalised relationship with other bodies, Affiliation. Affiliates are “organisations or agencies with a demonstrable interest in the quality assurance of higher education”.

Purposes

ENQA contributes to the development of quality assurance in higher education across the Bologna signatory countries.^[5] Through its projects, events (conferences, workshops, seminars), publications, and website, the association disseminates experience, good practice, and new developments on quality assurance to the higher education stakeholders.

ENQA works closely with key European organisations in the field of higher education - European University Association (EUA), European Association of Institutions in Higher Education (EURASHE), European Students' Union (ESU), BUSINESSEUROPE and Education International - and cooperates in continuation with other quality assurance networks like INQAAHE, APQN, etc. The association is part of the E4 Group (ENQA, EUA, EURASHE, ESU) and is also a founder of the European Quality Assurance Register for Higher Education (EQAR).

To sum up, ENQA's purposes are threefold:

"- to represent its members at the European level and internationally;

- to function as a think tank for developing further quality assurance processes and systems in the EHEA; and

- to function as a communication platform for sharing and disseminating information and expertise in quality assurance among members and towards stakeholders."

ESG

In 2003, the Ministers of the Bologna process asked ENQA to elaborate "an agreed set of standards, procedures and guidelines" for higher education.^[6] ENQA - together with EUA, EURASHE and ESU (the E4 Group) - developed The European Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance (ESG) that were adopted by the Bologna Process Ministers in 2005. The ESG now serve as a reference for quality assurance in higher education.

Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area (ESG)

References

Latest publications

External links

Official ENQA site