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ENQA Mission Statement

The mission of the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA) is to contribute significantly to the maintenance and enhancement of the quality of European higher education at a high level, and to act as a major driving force for the development of quality assurance across all the Bologna signatory countries. 

As the association of the European quality assurance agencies, ENQA contributes to this goal especially by promoting European co-operation in the field of quality assurance (QA) in higher education in order to develop and share good practice in QA and to foster the European dimension of QA. 

ENQA’s purposes are essentially threefold:

• to represent its members at the European level and internationally, especially in political decision making processes and in co-operations with stakeholder organisations;
• to function as a think tank for developing further quality assurance processes and systems in the EHEA; 
• to function as a communication platform for sharing and disseminating information and expertise in quality assurance among members and towards stakeholders.

ENQA fulfills its mission by adhering to the following principles:

ENQA respects the diversity of European higher education a major cultural heritage and strength of the emerging European Higher Education Area (EHEA), the diversity of quality assurance and enhancement approaches and measures and the diversity of approaches to setting-up national quality assurance systems.

ENQA acknowledges that the primary responsibility for quality rests with higher education institutions. External quality assurance, for which QA agencies are responsible, fulfils a different need: at its best it combines both accountability for the reassurance of the public and an objective and developmental role for enhancing quality in institutions. The role of national authorities is to define the given national QA setup and to ensure that the national QA system operates in harmony with the ESG.

ENQA is committed to respect the fitness for purpose principle (purpose-process alignment) that is at the core of the European dimension of quality assurance.

ENQA considers the autonomy of institutions and independence of quality assurance agencies within national HE systems as a necessary condition to ensure the full exercise of their responsibilities, notably with regard to the provision of accurate and consistent information to the general public.