News and Articles
Connecting Education: ASEM Senior Officials Meeting Advances Asia–Europe Cooperation ahead of ASEMME10
The ASEM Education Senior Officials’ Meeting (SOM1) was held in Bucharest in November, preparing for the next Ministerial Meeting (ASEMME10) Senior Officials from (Higher) Education Ministries of 11 Asian and 13 European partners, along with representatives from ASEM stakeholder organizations, met on November 18-19, 2025, in Bucharest, Romania, under the theme “Connecting Education. Fostering collaboration between Asia and Europe”. This meeting was hosted by the Romanian Ministry of Education and Research and the Romanian Erasmus+ National Agency, and it prepares – together with other meetings and initiatives – for the 10th Asia-Europe Meeting of Ministers of Education (ASEMME10), which will be held in late 2026 in the Philippines under the theme “Sustainability and Solidarity: Navigating Our Future Together through Asia-Europe Higher Education Cooperation.” Four keynotes on “Regional and Interregional Cooperation in Higher Education” highlighted activities, themes, and opportunities for cooperation between Asia and Europe. Two of the presentations were from the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) perspective, discussing the work of the Coordination Group on Global Policy Dialogue and cooperation in Quality Assurance. The Asian keynotes focused on the development of the Common Space in Southeast Asian Higher Education and activities carried out by Malaysia during its ASEAN Chairmanship in 2025. The more than […]
National policies for internationalisation across the EHEA: taking stock in 2025
National approaches to internationalisation – strategic and varied Roughly 15 years ago, Hans de Wit noted that internationalisation in European higher education had developed “from a marginal point of interest to a central factor” (de Wit, 2011). As we near the end of 2025, we see that internationalisation is considered by many to be a strategic tool not only for enhancing academic quality and competitiveness, but also for responding to broader social, economic, and geopolitical shifts. In internationalisation’s evolution from ‘nice-to-have’ to must-have, the focus on strategic approaches to internationalisation has also intensified. In the evolving landscape across the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), national strategies and policies for internationalisation are playing a pivotal role in shaping institutional priorities, cross-border collaboration, and global engagement. These strategic approaches take many forms. There are all-encompassing strategies supported and co-developed by multiple stakeholders. There are cases where national strategies have expired, but where their components still provide a red thread guiding all national internationalisation work. And there are countries with no national policy whatsoever but where highly autonomous higher education institutions essentially set the ‘national’ course. The landscape is broad and varied. A current snapshot of national policies and strategies Noting a gap in current and easily accessible information about such policies and strategies, and with a shared interest in raising the […]
The Lisbon Recognition Convention: Approaching 30 and still a key part of the EHEA
Few of the goals of the EHEA are easier to remember than “20 per cent mobility by 2020”. The goal has, in fact, proved to be easier to remember than to achieve. Despite its straightforward appearance, the goal is complex and composite. One important condition for successful academic mobility is that students get fair recognition of the qualifications they earn, regardless of whether they go abroad for a short period or a full degree program. Fair recognition depends on both a good international legal basis and sound recognition policy and practice to make the legal framework function in practice. Recognition of qualifications has been an important goal of the EHEA since its very beginning. Not only does the 1998 Sorbonne Declaration include a reference to the Lisbon Recognition Convention (LRC), which had been adopted one year earlier. The LRC is the only international treaty that has been incorporated into the EHEA. In the 2005 Bergen Communiqué, Ministers noted that 36 of the then 45 members of the Bologna Process had ratified the LRC and urged the remaining EHEA members to do so “without delay”. Nevertheless, the final ratification by the now 49 EHEA members came only in September 2024. On this background, the publication of Crossing Bridges […]
Internationalisation Award: Driving Policy through Practice
The newly launched Internationalisation Award showcases examples of good practice in implementing the goals of the National Mobility and Internationalisation Strategy for Higher Education 2020-2030 (HMIS2030) in Austria. The Internationalisation Award is presented in four categories and aims to highlight examples of good practice for internationalisation of the curriculum, the promotion of mobility of university staff and underrepresented student groups, and internationalised university culture in practice. All submissions for the Internationalisation Award have been published on hmis2030.at and create a growing repository of good practices. A Holistic Approach to Internationalisation HMIS2030 is based on a holistic understanding of internationalisation of higher education beyond student mobility. Building on principles first laid out by Betty Leask, the strategy aims to integrate global, international and intercultural dimensions into the entire teaching and learning environment. Internationalisation in this sense affects all levels of higher education institutions and all their members, from students to teachers and administrative staff. The Internationalisation Award reflects this broad vision by recognizing diverse practices that bring internationalisation to life. Internationalisation Award: Four categories towards one goal The Internationalisation Award was jointly created by Austria’s Agency for Education and Internationalisation (OeAD) and the Austrian Federal Ministry of Women, Science and Research (BMFWF). The […]
ENQA involvement in new projects
ENQA is pleased to be involved in five new recently launched projects funded through the Erasmus+ programme for supporting the implementation of Bologna Process commitments. As a project coordinator, ENQA will launch a 3-year initiative titled Robust Quality Assurance of Transnational Education (ROQA-TNE) to support good practice and transparency in the quality assurance of transnational education. QAA (UK), ANVUR (Italy), and ACQUIN (Germany) are project partners and there will be opportunities for other ENQA members and affiliates to engage in project activities through participation in a working group that will update the 2015 QACHE toolkit and develop a self-assessment tool for agencies to use in reflecting and improving their own processes. ENQA will also contribute as a partner to four further projects: Support for the enhancement-oriented implementation of the quality assurance key commitment (SIQA), through which ENQA will coordinate a working group on cross-border quality assurance and prepare thematic analyses on key issues for quality assurance in the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). This project is coordinated by ARACIS (Romania) and will support the work of the Bologna Thematic Peer Group on Quality Assurance. Stakeholder Perspectives on Implementation of Commitments in the EHEA (SPICE), in which ENQA will collaborate with the European University Association (EUA) […]
Support for the enhancement-oriented implementation of the quality assurance (SIQA) – a new project for the Thematic Peer Group on QA in EHEA
Launched in June 2025, the Support for the enhancement-oriented implementation of the quality assurance key commitment – SIQA project supports the work of the Bologna Thematic Peer Group C on Quality Assurance (TPG C on QA) during 2025-2028, building on the achievements and best practices from the IMINQA project (2022-2025). The project focuses on providing structured support to TPG C members, through a collaborative approach, in addressing the remaining implementation gaps in EHEA countries for achieving the key commitment of “promoting a quality culture in higher education, fostered by fit-for-purpose quality assurance processes in line with the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the EHEA (ESG)”. The project It also contributes to the fulfilment of other QA-related commitments, including the implementation of cross-border quality assurance (CBQA) and the use of the European Approach for Quality Assurance of Joint Programmes (EA). Coordinator: ARACIS – Romanian Agency for Quality Assurance in Higher Education Partners: ANQA – National Center for Professional Education Quality Assurance Foundation (Armenia) CTI – Commission des Titres d’Ingénieur (France) HCERES – Haut Conseil de l’Évaluation de la Recherche et de l’Enseignement Supérieur (France) EQAR – European Quality Assurance Register for Higher Education (Belgium) ENQA – European Association for Quality Assurance in […]
Newsletter - December 2025
