ENQA LED PROJECTS

Supporting European QA Agencies in meeting the ESG (SEQA-ESG )

Project: Supporting European QA Agencies in meeting the ESG (SEQA-ESG)

Call: EPLUS-2019-09-EHEA – Initiatives to support the implementation of European Higher Education Area (EHEA) reforms

Timeline:

The project is being held from 1 June 2020 to 30 May 2022 (24 months).

Objectives:

The main objective of the project is to support quality assurance (QA) agencies and national authorities in six countries (Albania, the Czech Republic, Malta, Moldova, Montenegro, and Slovakia) to create an ESG-compliant QA system, which is one of the Bologna Process key commitments.

More specifically, the project aims to achieve:

1) legal frameworks in line with ESG compliance;

2) alignment of the QA processes to the ESG peer-review method;

3) connection of national criteria with the ESG;

4) appropriate methods and criteria for the involvement of peer reviewers; and

5) stakeholder involvement in external QA.

Activities:

To reach the objectives, the following activities are foreseen in the project:

1) Peer counselling in the six countries, gathering national authorities, the agency and key stakeholders. The key outcome of the activity is a national action plan for QA development (six in total).

2) Peer support workshops on four key themes (QA methodology, QA criteria, review experts and stakeholders). The workshops target all QA agencies from the six partner countries (total of 25 people/workshop).

3) Staff exchanges between agencies (six in total), with multiplier presentations upon return, and

4) Creation of agency action plans for a review against the ESG (six in total).

The activities listed above are designed to address different needs appropriately, both at the legal framework level as well as within the agencies, and ensure that the six countries make fast progress in achieving ESG compliance.

Partners:

The project involves ENQA as the coordinator and partners from each of the six countries:

ENQA – European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education, Belgium (Coordinator)

ASCAL – Albanian Quality Assurance Agency, Albania

MESY – Ministry of Education, Sports and Youth, Albania

MSMT – Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, Czech Republic

NCFHE – National Commission for Further and Higher Education, Malta

ANACEC – National Agency for Quality Assurance in Education and Research, Moldova

MECC – Ministry of Education, Moldova

ACQAHE – Agency for Control and Quality Assurance of Higher Education, Montenegro

MPS – Ministry of Education, Montenegro

SAAHE – Slovak Accreditation Agency for Higher Education, Slovakia

MSVVaS – Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport, Slovakia