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ENQA Seminar on external reviews of agencies: "First external evaluations of quality assurance agencies - lessons learned", Paris, France, 10-11 July 2008 (24. Oct. 2007)

ENQA organised the seminar on the outcomes of the first external reviews of quality assurance agencies. The event was hosted by AERES.

In order to become Full Members of ENQA and to be granted admission in the European Quality Assurance Register for Higher Education (EQAR) once it is established, QA agencies are required to successfully undergo an external review and thereby to show that they comply sufficiently with the ESG.

Some agencies have already undergone an external review, coordinated at national level or by ENQA. It is now time to learn lessons from these first outcomes in order to continuously enhance this process, essential for strengthening mutual trust between agencies and stakeholders in higher education as well as among the agencies themselves.

The purpose of the seminar was threefold:
- to draw conclusions from reviews that have already been conducted and, in particular, to point out good practices and possible areas for improvement;
- to raise the awareness of the potential actors of external reviews (managers of agencies and experts) on the difficulties encountered during the reviews and to reflect specifically on the training for experts;
- to reflect on the implementation of centrally important concepts or principles to increase the quality of the review results.

The seminar helped to better define two particular concepts that are at the core of the external evaluation process: the notion of "substantial compliance", which defines the type of approach that the evaluator has to implement; and the notion of independence, which assures the legitimacy of the agencies' activities.

The announcement and the programme are available through these links Announcement (doc) and Programme (doc).


Seminar material

Presentation by Tibor Szanto, HAC, Hungary
"Background and purposes of external reviews of quality assurance agencies: ENQA membership, national purposes" (ppt)

Presentation by Emmi Helle, ENQA
"ENQA membership – what repercussions for agencies?" (ppt)

Presentation by Colin Tück and Lucien Bollaert, EQAR
"EQAR listing – what repercussions for agencies?" (pdf)

Presentation by Peter Williams, QAA, UK
"ENQA coordinated reviews and nationally coordinated reviews: similarities, differences and challenges" (ppt)

Presentation by Rafael Llavori, ANECA, Spain
"Self-assessment of agencies and self-assessment report - an agency perspective" (ppt)

Presentation by Michael Kraft, FHR, Austria
"Self-assessment of agencies and self-assessment report - perspective of the expert team" (ppt)

Presentation by Thierry Malan, France
"External reviews of Quality assurance agencies - Perspective of the expert team" (ppt)

Presentation by Bruno Curvale, AERES, France
"Recognition procedures of agencies" (ppt)

Conclusions by Fiona Crozier, QAA, UK
"Conclusions" (ppt)