EURASHE is pleased to officialy publish two Policy papers endorsed by EURASHE's Council, which gathered on Saturday 13 October in Antwerp (Belgium): the EURASHE Policy Paper on Mobility (top left, here), and the EURASHE Policy Paper on Quality Assurance and Transparency Tools (top right, here).

Both papers are the result of the Work of EURASHE's dedicated working groups which developed the paper and conducted extensive consultations inside the structures of EURASHE.

They join EURASHE's Overarching Policy Paper (bottom left, here) and the joint EURASHE-UASnet Position Paper on Research and Innovation (bottom right, here) unveiled at the EHEA Ministerial Conference in Bucharest (Romania) on 26-27 April 2012. More on EURASHE's participation in the Conference can be found here.

Read the Policy Paper on Mobility here! 

Read the Policy Paper on Quality Assurance and Transparency Tools here! 

EURASHE with its E4-Group partners (ENQA, ESU and EUA), will co-organise on 22-24 November 2012 in Tallinn (Estonia) the 7th Edition of the European Quality Assurance Forum (EQAF).

Through a mix of plenary and parallel sessions, the 2012 EQAF, entitled 'How does quality assurance make a difference?', will combine practice-oriented or research-based discussions with presentations of current developments in quality assurance.

This year, the Forum will specifically explore the impact of external and internal QA on higher education policies and institutional realities. In this context, the sessions will aim to address issues such as external evaluation and institutional follow-up; the relationship between QA, pedagogical approaches and student learning; QA supporting institutional aims and profiles; QA supporting informed decision-making; and the role of QA in globalised higher education.

Registrations close on 5 November 2012. If you are a member of one of the E4-Group partners, such as a EURASHE-Member, you are entitled to a reduced fee.

Learn more on the 7th EQAF here

Register here and now for the 7th EQAF

EURASHE is pleased to announce that it will co-organise a Seminar on Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) on Friday 14 December 2012 in Prague (Czech Republic), with Welcome & opening words and reception on Thursday 13 in the late afternoon.

EURASHE will, in close cooperation with and support from with the European RPL Network  (ERPLN), and the  Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (MSMT), host this event in Prague's National Technical Library  (NTK).

The tentative overarching thematic of the Seminar is "RPL, flexible ties within Higher Education". This Seminar aims at providing participants with an overview of general developments as regards RPL, with the opportunity to discuss the current challenges and to learn from the examples of best practices as regards to RPL implementation at institutional level, through the 4 different workshops scheduled throughout the Seminar.

Two major areas of discussions will deal with:

• The Mind-shift to make RPL a reality in particular drivers and motives of different stakeholders, and

• How to embed RPL into the QA system, and its effectiveness

Learn more on the dedicated page of the Seminar here!

Registrations open soon!

As you might know, in the last two years eight European stakeholders and research organisations have been working, through the EquNet project and with the support of the European Commission, with the aim of enhancing equity in European Higher Education through networking amongst all interested stakeholders, and have been gathering research on the topic.

In participating in EquNet, EURASHE aims at promoting the third pillar of PHE's mission which is Social Dimension and Access to HE.

At the end of its lifecycle, EquNet is organising an International Workshop on 7 November 2012 at University Foundation, Rue d'Egmont 11, Brussels (Belgium). We are hereby, as partner of the EquNet project, extending the invitation to you.

Read the programme here.

The workshop will gather around 50 representatives of stakeholders from the HE field (European HE associations, universities, experts, policy makers), and from the social inclusion field (NGOs, associations, trade unions).

Find out more on the event here.

To attend the event, click here!

EURASHE organised on 27-28 September 2012 in Nicosia (Cyprus) a Seminar on the Implementation of Internal and External QA. We are pleased to inform you that all presentations and speeches delivered during the Seminar are now available individually on our dedicated webpage here, or per batch-download here.

Moreover photographs of the Seminar, kindly provided by European University Cyprus (EUC), are also available here; as well as the Seminar Evaluation Report here. 

EURASHE will publish soon the Seminar Report and shall keep you informed of further developments. Stay tuned!

EURASHE Report on the Implementation of the European Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in Higher Education Institutions

In 2010, five years after the adoption of the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the EHEA (ESG)by the European Ministers of Education in Bergen (2005), in cooperation with the other partners of the E4-Group, ENQA, ESU and EUA, EURASHE accepted the mandate from the Ministers of the European Higher Education Area to examine the awareness, implementation and usefulness of the ESG in view of a possible revision of the ESG.

(Click also on the cover to read the EURASHE Report!) 

The E4-Group responded by running a project, "Mapping the Implementation and Application of the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area (MAP-ESG project)", and presented a joint report of the MAP-ESG project at the Ministerial meeting in Bucharest in April 2012. 

As we had completed an extensive consultation amongst members and stakeholders for the MAP-ESG project, which had delivered substantial input and which had only partly fed into the joint E4-report, EURASHE proposed to publish a report of its own, focusing on the results and recommendations affecting professional higher education.

Participants of the QA Seminar in Nicosia  received a copy of EURASHE's Report on the Implementation of the European Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in Higher Education Institutions.

This report is now officially published and is available here.

As one of EURASHE's core priorities is Mobility and International Openness and as EURASHE is represented in the BFUG Working Group on International Openness the CaribErasmus project encompasses the aims and goals supported by the Association.

CaribErasmus aims at fostering the cooperation amongst European and Caribbean HEIs in a structured and sustainable perspective and to facilitate and support mutual knowledge and information sharing between Caribbean and European universities. In 2011 the project entered its second phase in which the integration seminars have been organised in Jamaica, in the Dominican Republic and in Trinidad and Tobago with EURASHE being represented each time.

On 4 July 2012, at the ACP Secretariat in Brussels (Belgium), an International CaribErasmus Seminar was held with 4 EURASHE Representatives. One of the objectives of the Seminar was linked to the Road-mapping component of the project. Debating and fine-tuning, in the context of a high level roundtable, a set of future-oriented actions; starting from the CaribErasmus Green Paper on EU-Caribbean Higher Education Cooperation, which proposes a set of actions to improve cooperation amongst the two regions. Moreover the main CaribErasmus project results were presented including the Green Paper about which attendees were invited to comment.

Report of the Seminar here.

 Stefan Delplace (left, Belgium), EURASHE Secretary General at the Seminar

The CaribErasmus Green Paper was well received and is pursuing its spread; it has been used to prepare the strategy of the EULAC Foundation for the Caribbean; it will also be translated into Spanish by Universidad.es and promoted in the Spanish-speaking world; moreover it will be presented in an upcoming Seminar on Caribbean cooperation with Europe in Paris.

On 10-11 May 2012, EURASHE organised its 22nd Annual Conference in Riga (Latvia), around the topics of Lifelong Learning and the Welfare Society.

Part of the Annual Conference was dedicated to a couch discussion between both Keynote speakers, Jørn Henrik Petersen (Denmark) and Joeri van den Steenhoven (Netherlands).

EURASHE is happy to report that a 20-minute video of this exchange is now available here on the dedicated page of the Annual Conference.

LLL - Welfare Society EURASHE Discussion - J.H. Petersen (left, Denmark), J. van den Steenhoven (centre, Netherlands), Michal Karpisek (right, Czech Republic)

Were you to wish to read the contributions of the Keynote speakers, Jørn Henrik Petersen's speech is available here, and Joeri van den Steenhoven's speech is available here.

Moreover the Report of the Annual Conference is still available here.

On 11-12 October 2012, in Brussels (Belgium), EURASHE and 10 other partners involved in Higher Education officially launched at their kick-off meeting the HAPHE initiative aiming at Harmonising Approached To Professional Higher Education (PHE) in Europe.

This meeting provided the partners with the opportunity to discuss practical steps in the next few month in order to Map PHE in Europe before Characterising PHE.

For an overall presentation of the HAPHE initiative and its several components visit its dedicated page on our website here (before a stand-alone website soon!). Or view the presentation summing-up the initiative here. 

On 13 October 2012, EURASHE's Council gathered in Antwerp (Belgium), for its second meeting of 2012. It was hosted by the Antwerp Maritime Academy (AMA), institution of EURASHE's Vice-President Patrick Blondé. 

One of the main aims of this Council was to discuss EURASHE's policy commitments during a Policy & Strategy planning Workshop in the framework of the meeting. Members had the opportunity to prioritise the various policy lines and commitments of EURASHE. 

During this Council meeting, EURASHE renewed its Board. Marc Vandewalle, Secretary General of the Flemish Council of University Colleges (VLHORA) was re-conducted for a 2-year term. Gintautas Braziunas, Rector of Vilnius Kolegija/University of Applied Sciences, and President of the Rectors' Conference of Lithuanian University Colleges (LKDK), and Stéphane Lauwick, Director of the Havre University Institute of Technology (IUT) and Member of the Association des Directeurs d'IUTs (ADIUT), have been both selected for a first term of 2 years.

Moreover EURASHE also had the pleasure to welcome 6 new members to its ranks:

• Conference of Academies for Applied Studies in Serbia (KASSS, Serbia)

• Kyiv University of Law of National Academy of Science of Ukraine (KUL, Ukraine)

• National School of Political and Administrative Studies (SNSPA, Romania)

• Escuela Europea de Direccion de Empresa (EUDE, Spain)

• Association of Law Schools (ALS, Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia)

• International Association of Trade and Economic Education (IATEE, Russia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Armenia)

Learn more on current members here. More information on our new members will be available soon.

Do you want to become a Member of EURASHE?

Learn more here!