EQAR NEWSLETTER - NOVEMBER 2019

News: Register Committee approved seven applications | DEQAR update | Final call: QA Staff Mobility project

Register Committee approved seven applications

At their meeting in Brussels on 4/5 November, the EQAR Register Committee approved the applications of the following seven quality assurance agencies.

Register Committee in sessionOne newly registered agency:

Six renewals of registration:

The full decisions of the Register Committee can be found here, further information about the November Register Committee meeting can be found here.

As a result, 28 European Higher Education Area (EHEA) countries now fully realise the EHEA key commitment on quality assurance, with regular external quality assurance of all higher education institutions in line with the ESG, by EQAR-registered agencies. During 2019, three additional countries – Cyprus, Georgia and Hungary – joined that group as a result of their national quality assurance agencies admitted to the Register. The map illustrates the level of implementation of that commitment using the 5-colour scale of the EHEA Implementation Report. An up-to-date map and overview of detailed information per country can be found in EQAR's knowledge base of EHEA legal frameworks for quality assurance.

Manifold activities and support for countries in aligning their quality assurance systems with the agreed EHEA framework are made available by the dedicated Thematic Peer Group, see the article below.

DEQAR is the Database of External Quality Assurance Results, and all EQAR-registered agencies have the right to upload their reports and decisions to the database. Find out more in the following article.

DEQAR update

DEQAR, the Database of External Quality Assurance Results, is not only gaining in size, but also in versatility and prominence. DEQAR now contains over over 40 000 reports, offers infographics based on EQAR data and has its own explainer video.

DEQAR InfographicsState of play

DEQAR currently has 31 quality assurance agences that have uploaded more than 40 000 reports collectively, covering 2117 Higher Education Institutions from 39 EHEA countries and 340 reports across 25 non-EHEA countries. The following EQAR-registered agencies participate in DEQAR:

A3ES (PT) - AAQ (CH) - ACPUA (ES) - ACQUIN (DE) - ACSUCYL (ES) - ACSUG (ES) - AHPGS (DE) - AI (DK) - ANQA (AM) - AQAS (DE) - AQU (ES) - ARACIS (RO) - ASHE (HR) - ASIIN (DE) - BAC (UK) - EKKA (ET) - evalag (DE) - FIBAA (DE) - FINEEC (FI) - fmid (ES) - HCERES (FR) - IAAR (KZ) - IEP (CH) - IQAA (KZ) - MusiQuE (BE) - NCEQE (GE) - NCPA (RU) - NVAO (BE) - PKA (PL) - SQAA (SI) - UNIBASQ (ES) ZEvA (DE)

Video

One of the many challenges during the DEQAR project was how to explain and promote DEQAR in a concise, coherent and engaging way. Presentations, workshops and articles are not always the appropriate medium. Now you can find out the whats and whys of the database in a 1,5-minute video - sit back, watch and share if you enjoyed it!

Infographics

DEQAR contains a wealth of information on external quality assurance of higher education in Europe. We now have a set of infographics, providing some key insights based on DEQAR data. This includes statistics on the report types per agency, report languages and formal decisions: Try it out yourself

We are still looking for ideas and suggestions for further infographics, so please let us know if you have something in mind that you would find interesting and relevant.

Conference

The DEQAR Conference was held in Madrid on 7/8 October, hosted by the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M), thanks to the Crue Universidades Españolas.

The conference was held in conjunction with the annual EQAR Members’ Dialogue and marked the end of the European Forward-Looking Cooperation Project period. During that period (November 2017 – October 2019) the DEQAR database was developed and launched and promoted by EQAR, as project coordinator, and the 25 project partners.

The end of the project paved the way for a new phase in DEQAR, time to look forward and consolidate: how can we make sure that more QAAs participate in the database, how can we further improve, link, make use of and promote DEQAR? These topics, among others, were discussed at the DEQAR Conference, attended by more than 100 participants from the field: project partners and EQAR members, quality assurance agencies, representatives of EHEA ministries and other interested stakeholders representing the target groups of DEQAR.

Find out more about the DEQAR conference here or have a look at the presentations and posters that were given/presented.

Final call: QA Staff Mobility project

The Bologna Follow-Up Group’s Thematic Peer Group C on Quality Assurance was established with the aim of fostering peer support among countries. The Staff Mobility project is designed to support the work of the group in the full implementation of the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area (ESG) in each participating country.

To this aim, the project supports professional development by offering a work placement in another country to staff members within national authorities (ministries), QA agencies and/or stakeholder organisations working in the field of quality assurance in higher education. All flows and directions of staff mobility between ministries, QA-agencies and stakeholder organizations are possible. As such, the system supports the professional development of staff by offering a work placement in another country. A second round of the call for QA staff mobility has opened to allow more interesting parties from the Bologna process to submit an application. EQAR is part of the matchmaking committee, together with the co-chairs of the Bologna peer group on QA and ENQA.

The matchmaking committee is looking forward to reviewing your applications, so make sure to apply before this week's deadline of 29 November 2019.

Find out more and apply

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