EQAR members elect new President

Bjørn Stensaker is a well-known name in Higher Education circles and academia, having published over 200 articles, book chapters, books and reports. His areas of expertise in higher education range from quality assurance and evaluation, governance & leadership, to internationalisation and globalisation.

Bjørn started his career with a degree in Political Science at the University of Oslo, followed by a PhD at the School of Business Administration, Technology and Public Administration of the University of Twente (the Netherlands).

He is currently Full Professor of Higher Education at the Department of Education of the University of Oslo, and served as Vice-Rector Education at the same institution from 2021 to 2025.

He is considered as one of the leading experts in the world on quality assurance and the evaluation of higher education and has been part of and followed the development of quality assurance in Europe since the early European pilot projects in the mid-1990s. As part of this journey, he has studied and analysed systems of quality assurance in a number of European countries, investigated both intended and unintended consequences of quality assurance systems and practices, and contributed with studies on how different stakeholder groups engage with and are affected by quality assurance schemes.

His interest in quality assurance is far from being just analytical, having also taken on roles and responsibilities related to the practice of quality assurance, participating in evaluations of quality assurance agencies and organisations, being a member of the (international) advisory board of FINHEEC and A3ES and being executive member of both the Danish Accreditation Council and the Hong Kong Council for Accreditation. Bjørn has also served in executive boards and in strategic advisory boards of several universities in Europe, and is an often invited speaker in conferences in Europe and beyond.

As a reaction to the election result and his future role, Bjørn remarked the following: “I am very honoured to have been selected as the next EQAR president, and I look forward to serving EQAR in the period 2026-2029. Quality assurance continues to be an instrument of vital importance for the functioning of higher education – inside the individual higher education institution, for the national higher education system, and at the European level. The many stakeholders having an interest in the work and functioning of EQAR do still suggest that there are always dilemmas and tensions that need to be handled and solved in ways that are embedded in the values EQAR has committed to. This may be even more challenging as the current need for flexibility, innovation, and technology embedded delivery will result in more uncertainty as to how standards and guidelines should be adapted to new expectations. I look forward to engage in these issues in the years to come”.

Last year, a Selection Committee was established, consisting of representatives of the E4 (the founding members), the Board, the Register Committee and the governmental members. They published the Call for President, evaluated the applications, conducted the interviews and proposed one candidate, Bjørn Stensaker, to the General Assembly.

Appointing an EQAR President was one of the recommendations in EQAR’s external evaluation of 2011 “the General Assembly should appoint a high profile, independent President capable of raising the visibility and promoting the benefits of EQAR with key stakeholders”.

The statutory changes by the General Assembly of 12 April 2017 made the appointment of an EQAR President possible. Bjørn will be EQAR’s third elected president, the first one being Karl Dittrich and the second one, as mentioned earlier, Stéphane Lauwick.

The EQAR President chairs the General Assembly, the Executive Board and the Register Committee, represents EQAR externally and ensures coherence in the work of the EQAR bodies.

We look forward to working with Bjørn to further realise EQAR’s vision “a coherent quality assurance framework for the European Higher Education Area in which higher education institutions have the freedom to turn to a suitable EQAR-registered agency for their external quality assurance reviews, and in which qualifications are thus universally recognised.”