Formation Continue du Supérieur

As part of its efforts to galvanise the Single Market, the European Commission has recently launched a “mutual evaluation” exercise where member states will be asked to supply details of which professions they regulate and how. The Commission will then produce a comprehensive map, designed to guide peer review.
At issue are the number of regulated professions and the manner in which they are regulated. The Commission has no exact figure – it typically speaks of 4 000+. Professions are regulated in widely differing ways in different countries. Only the seven “sectoral” professions (medical doctor, dentist, general care nurse, midwife, veterinary surgeon, pharmacist and architect) are regulated at EU/EEA level.
The aims of the mutual evaluation are to rationalise regulatory activities, to ease access to the professions as far as consumer protection permits, and to extend the scope of automatic professional recognition. For more information, see http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:52013DC0676:EN:NOT. More...

Two dissemination workshops have recently taken place in San José, Costa Rica (16-17 0ctober), and Bogota, Colombia (23-24 October), regarding the outcomes of the ALFA PUENTES project, a three-year bi-regional cooperation project coordinated by EUA and involving 23 university associations from Latin America and Europe.
Focused on three related initiatives in the three main sub-regions of Latin America, the project has developed a proposal for a Central American qualifications framework (QF) for higher education and a pilot project for joint accreditation in the Andean Community, both of which were presented to regional stakeholders in the past weeks.
Led by the Central American University Council (CSUCA) and the rectors’ conferences of Panama, Honduras and Costa Rica, the proposal for the Central American QF was tabled to university rectors of the region and selected industry associations and government representatives. The Central American university systems are already closely interlinked and CSUCA has developed a variety of regional harmonisation activities to support further comparability, transparency and cooperation of systems.
The QF, which entails the three main cycles of higher education and will be further elaborated to include a short cycle, provides a reference point for generic learning outcomes after each cycle. EUA and European partners have been instrumental in sharing experience regarding the QF of the European Higher Education Area and helping the Latin American partners to develop a context-specific proposal which is largely driven by the academic community.
In Bogota, the rectors’ conferences of Colombia, Peru, Bolivia and Chile presented the results of a pilot project on regional programme evaluation, a precursor for a regional joint accreditation process. One major output of this initiative was the development of a cooperation platform between the rectors’ conferences and the national QA agencies.

Various European experts have shared their experiences regarding European quality assurance developments, both with regard to the European Standards and Guidelines and the EQAR, which have been used as reference points in the discussion. 40 participants from universities and QA agencies in the partner countries as well as a Colombian Government representative attended the event and discussed the way forward in terms of continuing and expanding the joint evaluation process and seeking synergies with the countries of Mercosur that already have a similar process underway.

ALFA PUENTES is a European Commission co-funded project coordinated by EUA in conjunction with 23 national and regional university associations in Latin America and Europe. For more information, please see: http://alfapuentes.org/portal

On 16 October, two members of the European Parliament, Amalia Sartori, Chair of the ITRE Committee and Luigi Berlinguer (Former Italian Minister for Research), presented a Manifesto entitled “European Research Area. A Maastricht for Research” to a number of stakeholders including EUA at a launch event at the European Parliament in Brussels.

Whilst acknowledging the actions that have and are being taken to overcome the current barriers to completing the ERA, the document calls for more binding instruments and proposes defining an “ERA Framework directive”.

EUA was invited at the event to provide some initial feedback to the proposed manifesto. EUA’s Lidia Borrell-Damian, who was representing EUA, highlighted that EUA welcomed the interest of the European Parliament and hopes this can be considered as an important point of dialogue between stakeholders and the EU Parliament, thus reinforcing the dialogue that already exists between the main stakeholders in the sector and the European Commission (through the Memoranda of Understanding or Joint Statements). More...

On 13 December, the Academic Cooperation Association (ACA), together with EUA, the European Association for International Education (EAIE) and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) will organise the one-day Policy seminar in Brussels entitled “For mutual gain: Euro-African cooperation in higher education”.
The event will cover a number of issues such as:

•    recent overall trends and developments in African higher education;
•    internationalisation in African higher education; and
•    cooperation in higher education between Africa and Europe.

Speakers will include specialists on African higher education and on Euro-Africa collaboration, including HE representatives from Africa and Europe and from organisations such as the World Bank and the European Commission.
More information on the event and registration is available through the ACA website and EUA members benefit from the same reduced fee as ACA members.