The European Quality Assurance Register (EQAR) is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. Founded by the E4 (ENQA, EURASHE, ESU, and EUA) in 2008, EQAR started with 19 governmental members and three agencies registered.
The first seeds of what was eventually to become EQAR were planted at the 2005 Bergen summit: ministers adopted the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area (ESG) and welcomed the concept of a European register of QA agencies, to be further developed during the next two years. The E4 then presented an operational model to ministers at the London summit in 2007. Ministers “welcomed the establishment of a register by the E4 group, working in partnership, based on their proposed operational model”. EQAR was founded on 4 March 2008, after further work by the E4 to turn the operational model into reality.
EQAR now features 46 registered agencies that have demonstrated their compliance with the ESG. It is governed and supported by the European stakeholder organisations and 39 governmental members (from amongst the 48 countries comprising the European Higher Education Area).