Thumbs up for new European Universities working group

Regional quality assurance stakeholders have welcomed the establishment of a new working group under the European Universities Initiative (2022-24) (EUI) aimed at investigating the implementation of a common European framework for quality assurance.

The work of the group is to be based on the EUniQ (European Framework for Comprehensive Quality Assurance of European Universities) project which aims to develop a regional approach to comprehensive quality assurance among the European Universities (transnational alliance) networks.

Part of the umbrella project known as I’MINQA (Implementation and Innovation in Quality Assurance through Peer Learning), the working group is driven by the Bologna Follow up Group (BFUG) thematic peer group C, established to promote exchanges and collaboration between cooperating countries and ensure they live up to “the standards and regulations for quality assurance” within the European Higher Education Area (EHEA).

Megalie Soenen, policy adviser for higher education at the Ministry of Education and Training of the Flemish Community, is project coordinator for the working group on the quality assurance of European Universities, with co-chairs at the Ministry of Education and Science, Kazakhstan and the Romanian Agency for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ARACIS).

The results of the work are to be reported at the 2024 EHEA Ministerial Conference.

EUniQ project – Background

The Flemish Community coordinated the EUniQ project through the Accreditation Organisation of the Netherlands and Flanders (NVAO). The project consortium comprised eight quality assurance agencies, six ministries and the European stakeholders’ organisations European University Association, the European Students' Union (ESU) and the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA).

The EUniQ 2019-21 project was developed within the framework of the peer support group on quality assurance of the Bologna Implementation and Coordination Group (BICG).

It was focused on developing a methodology for assessing one of the three key commitments included in the Paris Communiqué: quality assurance in compliance with the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area.

The project was funded by the EU Erasmus+ programme to support the implementation of EHEA reform and directed by Mark Frederiks at NVAO. The final report was delivered to the European Commission in December 2021.

In recommendations on the development of quality assurance at European Universities presented by Liesbeth Hens on behalf of the Flemish Ministry of Education at the final dissemination conference of EUniQ on 27 September 2021, emphasis was placed on the need for the process to “respect the developmental stages of [EUI] alliances” and the need for “strong” stakeholder dialogue.

An ‘extremely important question’

Director-general of the Swedish Higher Education Authority (UKA) Anders Söderholm said his organisation is looking forward to working with 15 other countries on the quality assurance of European universities, describing it as “an extremely important question” for both Swedish higher education institutions participating in an alliance and for the higher education sector.

“For UKA, it is a prioritised task, and we want to participate and influence when there are substantial changes within our area of responsibility at the European level,” he said.

Maria Wikse, senior policy analyst at UKA and the representative for Sweden in the new consortium, told University World News that an initial meeting of the consortium had been held on 17 June, attended by representatives from 19 countries (Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belgium/Flemish Community, Croatia, Cyprus, Finland, France, Georgia, Hungary, Italy, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Malta, Norway, Romania, Slovenia, Sweden, The Netherlands) and six organisations (the European University Association [EUA], the European Trade Union Committee for Education [ETUCE], the ESU, the European Commission, the European Quality Assurance Register for Higher Education [EQAR] and the ENQA).

She said the UKA has been pleased to be part of the EUniQ project and had held several meetings with stakeholders, both higher education institutions in European Universities, and those not in alliances, as well as with experts in the field.

“In Sweden, there are several policy and working groups focusing on the EUI and its consequences and there has been much support for UKA to be proactive in the discussions about transnational quality assurance,” she said.

University World News canvassed the views of EUniQ-participants and members of the new working group, international experts, other stakeholders, and alliance coordinators in order to gauge whether the establishment of the working group and its anticipated activities are likely to generate increased enthusiasm for the EUI or whether the group’s link to the Bologna follow-up projects raises concerns about added levels of bureaucracy in relation to the EUI.

National will

Oystein Lund, based at the Norwegian Agency for Quality Assurance in Education (NOKUT) and a member of the ENQA board, told University World News he believes it was a “very good initiative” that would help to foreground the question of how to perform transnational quality assurance within the European University alliances.

“I hope the project will be able to address the core issue in this field, which is the lack of will in several countries to work on their national framework for higher education. It has become urgent to remove special legislation that prevents transnational quality assurance and to ensure a conscious national will to stimulate quality assurance across national borders,” he said.

Professor Kurt Deketelaere, secretary-general of the League of European Research Universities, told University World News that, while the follow-up actions will be helpful to reassure universities who go into an alliance with partners in countries they don’t know, he was not sure “to what extent this will eliminate legal barriers regarding the recognition of degrees, the set-up of joint degrees, the delivery of a European university degree, and so on – which, at the end of day, are the key issues”.

Higher education internationalisation expert Professor Hans de Wit, based at the Boston College Center for International Higher Education, who is also involved in the EUniQ project, said he is positive about the follow-up actions proposed, but is worried about potential challenges to quality as a result of the speed and size of the next round of the European Universities initiative.

“Too little time for current alliances to develop their mission and vision and to set up a good quality assurance, as they have to apply for new funding and incorporate new partners, is asking for problems,” he said.

“Certainly, as Deketelaere states, there are still many legal barriers to be solved, and there is already a lot of bureaucracy in place.”

Maria Kelo, director of institutional development at the EUA, told University World News a common quality assurance method such as that developed within EUniQ has the potential “to support reflection on and the creation of joint internal quality assurance policies and methods within alliances to ensure a consistent and overarching view on their joint transnational activities”.

However, in terms of its use for external quality assurance, it was “for the moment an additional layer”, she said, “as, at least in the short-term, national systems are unlikely to allow for its use instead of their national quality assurance”.

In addition, she said, because the method looks at the joint activities and not all participating institutions in detail, it is not well suited to replace national external quality assurance approaches.

Adding value, not red tape

“We should, thus, take care that any new tool will be used to add value to the institutions, and not to add bureaucracy and create review fatigue,” she said.

Kelo said discussions around the EUI have helped to “bring back to the forefront many remaining challenges in transnational cooperation, and highlighted areas where Bologna Process reforms have not yet been fully implemented, such as quality assurance of joint programmes.

“The renewed discussion and attention on implementation are very welcome and we hope that reforms are completed for the benefit of all institutions, not only those involved in the EUI.”

Vice president of the ESU Jacob Grodecki, who has participated both in the EUniQ project and is now in the working group on implementation, said that the student union is positive about the EUI, the impetus for which originated in a speech given by French President Emmanuel Macron in 2017.

“In this early phase of the initiative, it is crucial for the alliances to be open to new forms of collaboration, innovation and internationalisation, and the creation of more and more opportunities for learners in Europe.

“We also perceive the initiative as a good driving force for change and furthering of unification of the higher education systems between European countries, to allow for wider access to the high-quality education systems in Europe within and outside of the initiative.”

Borderless learning at scale

Dr Thomas Baumgartner, head of the Aurora European Universities Alliance at Innsbruck, Austria, told University World News that the EC, through the European university alliances, had created a “powerful initiative” that is transforming how higher education institutions in Europe collaborate.

“They act as laboratories to implement borderless learning on a scale never seen before, ranging from short-term opportunities to joint programmes.

“As participating institutions, we have made a very clear strategic commitment, not only to act collectively on shared themes and challenges, but also kick off a wider change agenda, so that we can live up to the goals and expectations of the European Universities Initiative. This includes overcoming bureaucratic hurdles, not only on the institutional, but also national level.

“For instance, since the start of the Aurora Alliance, Universität Innsbruck has been in close consultation with the national Federal Ministry for Science and Research, to implement a dedicated European university student status in Austria, which would facilitate a more seamless intake of students from our alliance partners.

“We are not there yet, but we are getting there. So … only 18 months into our alliance programme [we have had] substantial discussions on changing higher education legislation in Austria, which I think is a clear sign of how important this initiative is.

“With the long-term vision that the European Universities imply, a lot seems possible in the years to come, and alliances are very eager to explore new avenues of collaboration for the benefit of stakeholders, in particular the students,” said Baumgartner.

Sophia Karner, coordinator for UNA-EUROPA, an international network of European research-intensive universities launched in early 2019 under the EUI initiative and one of the alliances piloted in the EUniQ project, said: “We welcome the establishment of a European working group for transnational quality enhancement of the European University Initiative – in particular, its strong links with both the EUniQ project and Bologna follow-up groups.

She said UNA-Europa’s participation in the EUniQ pilot evaluation in the second half of 2020 was a “highly rewarding experience”.

“We believe that the EUniQ framework is a promising concept that can act as a useful starting point for the development of an appreciative quality assurance framework for European University alliances.

A holistic approach

“In our view, it is absolutely key that alliances are looked at holistically across all their missions and that any new framework is sufficiently flexible to account for the diversity of alliances out there.

“We must also be mindful not to create too many additional procedures and requirements for our universities but ensure a real focus on the added value dimension, that is, the enhanced quality through transnational collaboration.”

Meritxell Chaves Sánchez, alliance manager of CHARM-EU, an alliance coordinated by the University of Barcelona, said she fully supports the EUniQ framework.

“CHARM-EU was able to get the accreditation of the first programme under the European Universities Initiative and implement it in 2021 and the case strongly contributed towards making two national legislations (in Spain and Hungary) more flexible for joint European degrees in a co-creation process with ministries and agencies.

“The key elements for the future are: focusing on quality assurance at the institutional level, enhancing existing European tools and not creating new ones, and building trust.

“And some generosity at the national level to permit this flexibility to joint programmes that make this initiative sustainable,” she added.