EQAR

The European Quality Assurance Register for Higher Education

European Quality Assurance Register (EQAR) is the first (and so far, only) official organisation created in the context of the Bologna Process. It was established to serve as a gatekeeper for reliable quality assurance agencies, as demonstrated by their compliance with the European Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance (ESG), and thus improve trust and confidence in European higher education.

In most European countries, higher education institutions or study programmes are subject to regular external review by a quality assurance agency. EQAR is the official register of such agencies, only listing those that work in line with the ESG and in this way facilitating trust in the external quality assurance results and outcomes reached by these agencies.

EQAR’s organisational structure was designed to enable the independent Register Committee to manage the Register, verify that the registered agencies operate in compliance with the ESG and ensure independence and integrity by appropriate checks and balances.

The Register aims to:

• Increase the transparency of quality assurance.

• Provide clear and reliable information on quality assurance provision in Europe.

• Facilitate automatic recognition and portability of qualifications and student mobility by providing a basis for the increase of trust among higher education institutions.

• Reduce opportunities for “accreditation mills” to gain credibility.

• Provide a basis and means for higher education institutions to choose between different agencies for their external quality assurance, and for governments to authorise them to do so, if that is compatible with national arrangements.

• Serve as an instrument to improve the quality of agencies and to promote mutual trust among them.

What to find on our website:

• The “Register” of trustworthy quality assurance agencies in the European Higher Education Area, operating in compliance with the ESG.

• Our “Knowledge base” with country information, describing the national QA frameworks of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) countries, and other info on QA in Europe.

• DEQAR: the “Database of External Quality Assurance Results”, listing higher education institutions and programmes that have been subject to external quality assurance by an EQAR-registered agency as well as easy access to the corresponding reports.

Background DEQAR

In 2018, EQAR launched a new database to be found directly on the EQAR website. DEQAR is the Database of External Quality Assurance Results on activities performed by EQAR-registered quality assurance agencies. DEQAR not only collects their reports and decisions but also helps to understand reports in their context by describing the national QA frameworks of the EHEA countries.

The wider benefits of DEQAR are manifold:

• Faster and more efficient recognition process, thanks to the one-stop shop access to QA results and reports.

• Increase of trust and transparency in QA of higher education.

• Foster student and higher education institution staff mobility and employability.

• Working towards a knowledge hub of higher education systems.

Contributing to the Development of the EHEA.

The following activities in the EQAR Strategy are earmarked for 2024 – 2028 under the strategic goal “Trust and recognition” and refer mainly to EQAR’s contribution to the development of the EHEA.

• Encourage EHEA governments to use EQAR registration as a basis for the recognition of external QA results and the reduction of duplication of efforts that different (national) QA processes (requirements) might generate.

• Promote the use of DEQAR as a transparency tool towards different stakeholders and the public.

• Maintain the exchange of information with the ENIC-NARIC networks to promote the role of external QA and EQAR in supporting the (automatic) recognition of qualifications.

• Encourage the integration of DEQAR by ENIC-NARIC centres in their recognition workflow and digital credentialing.

• Contribute to the EHEA working structures where relevant and appropriate in light of EQAR's specific role.

• Contribute to new initiatives in the EHEA by serving as a recognition hub for QA agencies’ ESG compliance and providing policy expertise in the domain of cross-border QA and, when relevant, by contributing to European projects.

• Encourage non-member EHEA countries to become governmental members.