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European Quality Assurance Register for Higher Education


Criteria for inclusion

Quality assurance agencies that wish to be included on the register need to demonstrate that they operate in substantial compliance with the European Standards and Guidelines (ESG). Compliance with the ESG will only be considered if the application fulfils all eligibility requirements.

European Standards and Guidelines (ESG)

The ESG (adopted in 2005 by the Bologna Process ministerial summit in Bergen, Norway) contain common principles and reference points for quality assurance of higher education in Europe.

They consist of three parts, addressing:

  • Part 1: Internal quality assurance within higher education institutions
  • Part 2: External quality assurance of higher education
  • Part 3: External quality assurance agencies

Naturally, parts 2 and 3 thereof are those with direct relevance to quality assurance agencies and thus serve as criteria for inclusion on the register.

It should, however, be noted that standard 2.1 expects part 1 of the ESG to be considered in external quality assurance activities. The extent to which part 1 is reflected in the agency's work with higher education institutions and programmes thus plays an important role, too.

Further information, the full text of the ESG

Substantial compliance

Since the ESG aim to be “applicable to all higher education institutions and quality assurance agencies in Europe, irrespective of their structure, function and size, and the national system in which they are located”, they focus on principles rather than on prescribing procedural details:

  • “It has not been considered appropriate to include detailed "procedures" in the recommendations of this chapter of the report, since institutional and agency procedures are an important part of their autonomy. It will be for the institutions and agencies themselves, co-operating within their individual contexts, to decide the procedural consequences of adopting the standards contained in this report.” (ESG p. 11f.)

Bearing this in mind, the ESG can obviously not be used as a check-list. EQAR expects applicants to be in substantial compliance with the ESG: that is, if a standard is not fulfilled by the letter of the law, the applicant might still be considered substantially compliant if the stipulated principle is appropriately respected in practice.

The different standards are often linked to each other and there is sometimes considerable overlap between them. Furthermore, some standards are much broader than others. The Register Committee therefore makes a holistic judgement on an applicant's substantial compliance with the ESG, rather than following any numerical rules.

Geographical Scope

Several quality assurance agencies also operate in other countries than their base country. Users of the Register will assume that all registered quality assurance agencies always work in substantial compliance with the ESG.

Therefore, as a rule, applicants are expected to comply substantially with the ESG (in their evaluation, audit and accreditation activities) wherever they operate within or outside the European Higher Education Area (EHEA).

ENQA membership

Full membership of ENQA is normally considered as satisfactory evidence for substantial compliance with the ESG, since agencies also need to evidence their substantial compliance with the ESG in order to become full member of ENQA.

Considering that those agencies and their external review processes have undergone sound scrutiny by ENQA, the Register Committee can sometimes build upon ENQA’s considerations: for instance, if ENQA has already addressed certain questions, EQAR might use that information and be able to solve certain issues more efficiently.