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Principles of external reviews

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

ENQA has adopted a new policy for agency reviews

The Board has discussed the practicalities of agency reviews, especially the decision-making process on the basis of both ENQA-coordinated and nationally coordinated reviews. The Board agreed that ENQA would coordinate all reviews in order to guarantee a higher level of homogeneity of the reviews. However, nationally coordinated reviews would still be possible in cases where agencies are subjected to national reviews due to national regulations.

In addition, the Board decided that, following the discussions about the first round of agency reviews, the enhancement aspect of the reviews shall be strengthened in the second round and the agency thus be given more recommendations for further development than in the first round reviews.

The new policy came into effect on 1 July 2011.

The cost of an ENQA-coordinated review, including the fees and expenses of a five member review team, is approximately 30,000 EUR.

For more information, please consult the Guidelines for external reviews of quality assurance agencies in the EHEA.

Please also consult the Code of Conduct, which describes rules of good behaviour relating to the agencies' external review procedure, and more particularly to the conduct of the site visit. It is intended to assist all Review Panel members, including the Chairs and Secretaries, by providing general guidance on the expected standards of good behaviour and defining more specifically the experts' responsibilities.

Additionally, The ENQA Board has prepared an information note pertaining to ENQA Board decisions on external reviews of quality assurance agencies. The contents include background information on ENQA, levels of conformity with ENQA membership criteria/ESG, ENQA Board decision making procedures, ENQA Board decisions and ENQA coordinated reviews.