European Approach for Quality Assurance of Joint Programmes

Joint programmes are a hallmark of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). They are set up to enhance the mobility of students and staff, to facilitate mutual learning and cooperation opportunities and to create programmes of excellence. They offer a genuine European learning experience to students. Joint degrees express the “jointness” also in the awarding of the degree.

The European Approach for Quality Assurance of Joint Programmes (EA), adopted by European Ministers responsible for higher education, has been developed to ease external quality assurance of these programmes: it defines standards that are based on the agreed tools of the EHEA, without applying additional national criteria. This is expected to facilitate integrated approaches to quality assurance of joint programmes, which genuinely reflect and mirror their joint character.

European Approach Online Toolkit

The toolkit is THE “How to” Guide for those wanting to use the EA; it consists not only of written explanations but also of step-by-step video guidelines, beginning with “What is the idea of the European Approach?”.

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The toolkit was one of the main outcomes of the Erasmus+-funded project project “Facilitating implementation of the European Approach for Quality Assurance of Joint Programmes” (ImpEA).  The very practical, hands-on toolkit is an excellent resource for both higher education institutions and quality assurance agencies.

EQAR was associate partner of the project, with ENQA, ECA, several registered QA agencies and several higher education institutions as partners. More about the project here.

Further information on the European Approach can be found on the following pages:

European Approach for QA of Joint Programmes

Mapping of European higher education institutions offering a joint programme that was accredited using the European Approach