LIREQA aims at contributing to fair recognition of qualifications by developing recommendations to relate academic recognition to both internal and external quality assurance.
The project will bring together communities of credential evaluators, represented by ENIC/NARIC networks and centres, communities of quality assurance specialists, represented by national/regional external quality assurance agencies and their association ENQA, and higher education institutions.
Project Duration
December 2016 – May 2019
Background
LIREQA will follow upon the initiative by several quality assurance agencies, members of ENQA, to explore the topic of linking recognition with quality assurance, an important topic following the adoption of the ESG 2015. Quality assurance agencies, SKVC, CTI, ANECA, AQU Catalunya, also QQI agreed to voluntary engage, forming a working group, which was later endorsed by the ENQA Board in summer 2015. The working group had just begun when the NARIC call under Erasmus+ was issued, and the group agreed that it provided a vital funding opportunity. Being both an ENIC/NARIC centre and external QA agency, SKVC took the lead.
Objectives
The projects aims to:
- map the present situation and learn of expectations and possibilities for improvement from the main stakeholders (ENIC/NARIC centres,QA agencies, HEls);
- create a set of recommendations to address fair recognition of qualifications via external and internal quality assurance (QA);
- build capacity of ENIC/NARIC centres, QA agencies and HEls.
Consortium
The consortium consists of the following NARIC partners:
- NARIC Lithuania – coordinator (SKVC, which also acts as external quality assurance agency in Lithuania),
- NARIC Netherlands (EP-Nuffic),
- NARIC Norway (which also acts as external quality assurance agency in Norway (NOKUT),
- NARIC Latvia (which also acts as external quality assurance agency in Latvia).
The following non-NARIC partners will be involved:
- CTI (Commission des Titres d’lngenieur, which is a quality agency for engineering education in France),
- AQU Catalunya (Catalan University Quality Assurance Agency, Barcelona),
- ANECA (National Agency for Quality Assessment and Accreditation of Spain, Madrid),
- ENQA (European Association for Quality Assurance of Higher Education, Belgium).
Advisory Group consists of members as listed below:
- President of Intergovernmental Lisbon Recognition Convention Committee (LRC) Committee,
- Representative of ESU (European Student Union), one of the main consultative partners in the EHEA,
- Representative of higher education institutions, coming from EUA as one of the main consultative partners in the EHEA,
- External expert, former member of NARIC Advisory Board.