By Cristina Ghițulică, ENQA President 2025-2026
All good things come to an end, and that was certainly how we felt as we closed the 2026 ENQA General Assembly in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (Spain) last week.
The ENQA community spent three wonderful days together, and I would like to thank the team at the Canarian Agency for Quality Assessment and Accreditation (ACCUEE) for their hospitality and excellent organisation of the event.
Under the theme of “Collaborate. Learn. Innovate”, we discussed the different dimensions of collaboration in quality assurance at national and international levels. The event was a natural continuation of the discussions at the Members’ Forum in April on trust, and of the June seminar on strategic communication.
We need trust to collaborate, but we need to collaborate and communicate to build trust. It is difficult to decide which should come first, and maybe we just need to put faith in each other in advance, hoping the future will prove we were right; I think this is what we do every day in this community, and that makes it very special.
Last week also marked the end of my mandate as a member of the ENQA Board and as ENQA President. It was a great honour to serve ENQA, and for sure I did my very best to dedicate time and use my knowledge and experience. Over the years, ENQA has been part of my life in many ways. I have also learned a lot from everyone I have worked with, particularly my fellow Board members and previous presidents, Christoph Grolimund and Douglas Blackstock, as well as Secretariat members and directors, Maria Kelo and Anna Gover. I am very grateful to you all for letting me be part of this for so many years, and for all your support.
During this time, ENQA has grown in membership and prominence within the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) and beyond, while continuing to provide high-quality services to its members and affiliates. While the Bologna Process Implementation Report 2020 acknowledges the development of quality assurance systems as “one of the most significant features and drivers for change,” internal and external quality assurance systems across the European countries have matured, calling for more enhancement-oriented processes and procedures. At the same time, new policy commitments have been added, notably on transnational education; and we see a growing pressure to include other areas of focus in the European Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the EHEA (ESG), such as the fundamental values or the social dimension of higher education.
Looking ahead, surely the implementation of the ESG 2027, as the only instrument to prove the fulfilment of the Bologna Process’ key commitment in quality assurance, will be the main challenge for ENQA and its membership. A lot of effort is required for preparing ENQA’s representation at the next Ministerial Conference and its contributions to the different current policy initiatives in the field of quality assurance, as well as in the fields of automatic recognition or transnational education. Across Europe, we see budget cuts for higher education, which may affect funds available for quality assurance systems. The rise of artificial intelligence is affecting trust in higher education qualifications, and a lot of expectations rely on external quality assurance procedures. Nevertheless, I am confident that we will overcome these challenges and turn them into opportunities, as we rely on highly professional members, as well as committed Board members and Secretariat staff. In this respect, the next ENQA working plan includes developing new activities, such as facilitating discussions on the use of artificial intelligence in external quality assurance and consultations on a structured training programme for junior agency staff.
I wish the new Board and President every success for the work ahead. It has been an honour to lead ENQA’s work over the past years, and I look forward to continuing to be part of the ENQA family and contributing to its development.