Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area - 3rd edition

ENQA produces publications dealing with the developments in the European quality assurance. This page contains the latest publications of ENQA in PDF Format. Paper copies can be ordered from the ENQA Secretariat: ESG | Occasional Papers | Workshop and Seminar Reports | Associated Reports | Review Reports & Decisions.
Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area - 3rd edition.
ENQA has produced, in co-operation and consultation with its member agencies and the E4 Group (ENQA, EUA, EURASHE and ESIB), this important report that was submitted to the European Ministers of Education meeting in Bergen in May 2005. The report was also presented to the Bologna Follow-Up Group on 1 March 2005.
The 3rd edition's Table of Contents numbering system has been restored for practical reasons; however, the text remains identical to the 2nd edition.
The ESG have been translated into 14 languages, as follows (in alphabetical order):
- Albanian (doc) by the Albanian Accreditation Agency for Higher Education
- Albanian (doc) by the Kosovo Accreditation Agency
- Bosnian (pdf) by the European Commission and Council of Europe
- Catalan (pdf) by the Agency for Quality Assurance in the Catalan University System (AQU)
- French (pdf) by the Comité National d'Évaluation of France (now AERES)
- Galician (pdf) by the Agency for Quality Assurance in the Galician University System (ACSUG)
- German (pdf) by the German Rectors' Conference
- Greek (pdf) by the Hellenic Assurance Agency for Higher Education (HQAA)
- Hungarian (pdf) by the Hungarian Accreditation Committee (HAC)
- Italian (pdf) by the Agenzia Nazionale Programma LLP/Erasmus
- Romanian (pdf) by the National Alliance of Student Organisations in Romania.
- Russian (pdf) by the National Accreditation Agency of the Russian Federation (NAA)
- Slovak (pdf) by the Slovak Rector's Conference
- Spanish (pdf) by the National Agency for Quality Assessment and Accreditation of Spain (ANECA)
- Ukrainian (pdf) by the British Council in Ukraine.
Please note that the translations have not been verified by ENQA and that the translating parties bear the responsibility of inaccuracies.

Occasional Papers |
Quality Procedures in the European Higher Education Area and Beyond – Visions for the Future (02. Apr. 2012)
The present publication is the result of the third ENQA survey on quality procedures of quality assurance agencies across Europe and beyond. This report presents a collection of current features of good practice in external quality assurance within the new priorities formulated by ENQA and following the ministerial Communiqués, highlighting the connection between the practices and the expected benefits for higher education institutions and stakeholders. In addition, the present report identifies practices that are expected to be implemented by quality assurance agencies, as well as areas where progress needs to be made, thus proposing a vision of the future of quality assurance procedures.

Workshop and Seminar Reports |
Quality Assurance and Qualifications Frameworks: Exchanging Good Practice (pdf) (20. Aug. 2012)
This report is based on the ENQA workshop “Quality Assurance and Qualifications Frameworks: exchanging good practice”, which took place in Dublin, Ireland, on 9-10 February 2012 and presents articles on themes such as the state of development of qualifications frameworks, the role of agencies in the self-certification process, and the meaning of qualifications frameworks in external quality assurance.
Internal Quality Assurance and Benchmarking (pdf) (23. May. 2012)
This report is based on the annual ENQA Internal Quality Assurance seminar on the theme of Learning from each other – using benchmarking to develop IQA that was held on 16-17 June 2011 in Helsinki, Finland. It presents a general overview of the benchmarking theme and discusses common features and differences of the benchmarked agencies’ IQA activities in terms of the selected three themes: performance indicators, follow-up on feedback and staff competence/development. The report also puts forward the benchmarking partners’ views on strengths, weaknesses and recommendations for development of each other’s activities, as well as the good practice they have identified on the selected theme.
Quality Assurance of Joint Programmes (pdf) (08. Mar. 2012)
This Report is based on the ENQA seminar on "Quality Assurance of Joint Programmes" that was held on 19 September 2011 in Vienna, Austria. The purpose of this seminar was to analyse the experience already gaind in quality assurance of joint programmes as regards specific issues and methodological approaches, and to make recommendations to the ministers responsible for higher education in the Euopean Higher Education Area.
Quality Assurance in Lifelong Learning (pdf) (14. Feb. 2012)
This report is based on the ENQA workshop on the theme “Quality Assurance in Lifelong Learning” that was held from the 16-17th of May 2011 in Bonn, Germany. The workshop provided a platform for discussion and exchange of experiences among the main stakeholders in quality assurance. The workshop aimed to contribute to joint understanding of the quality assurance in lifelong learning (LLL) between stakeholders, to disseminate information on good practice of external quality assirance in LLL, and to discuss standards and procedures for external quality ssurance in LLL.
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