Building European‐level Quality Assurance Structures: Views from Within ENQA

Abstract

The current article discusses the changes in the role of the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA) in the Bologna Process, mainly from the ENQA point of view. This paper argues that ENQA’s development to its current status as a European‐level policy maker is to a great extent a result of the European Union’s policy of supporting European‐level cooperation and transparency in the field of quality assurance. ENQA was not the only contestant for the role it now has in European quality assurance. The European University Association (EUA) had long‐term experience in quality assurance and also had its own interests in the field of quality assurance. The tension between ENQA and EUA is visible in the policy statements of these organisations and in interviews of past and current ENQA actors that were carried out for this study. In order to have a fuller picture of the development of European‐level quality assurance structures, it is necessary to complement this study with further interviews from the point of view of other stakeholders, notably the EUA and the Commission of the European Union.

Keywords:

• quality assurance
• ENQA
• Bologna Process

Notes

1 From 2000 to 2004 the acronym ENQA stood for ‘The European Network for Quality Assurance’. From 2004 it stands for ‘The European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education’.

2 Interview A took place in English; extracts from interviews B, C and D are our own translations.

3 Editor’s note: the European Standards and Guidelines were not originally designed as a compliance document; they were guidelines with suggested standards to aid agencies in their processes. The assumption that ENQA members will have no problem in entering the Register has not been the case in practice.