EQAR Celebrates 10th Anniversary

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 off with 19 governmental members and 3 first agencies registered.

A short history

The origin of EQAR is 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 quality assurance agencies.

The E4 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.

A few highlights

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 making up the European Higher Education Area, EHEA).

Much has happened since 2008. In 2015, Ministers adopted the revised Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area (ESG) and the European Approach for Quality Assurance of Joint Programmes – EQAR contributed significantly to both documents. 

Recently, EQAR started the work on the Database of External QA Results (DEQAR) by registered agencies.

*The European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education – ENQA; the European Association of Institutions in Higher Education – EURASHE; the European Students’ Union – ESU; and the European University Association – EUA.