ANECA participates in the activities of the QA-FIT project and the European IMINQA initiative in Brussels

ANECA was invited to the meeting organised by ENQA on 7 November in Brussels, which served as the final touch to the QA-FIT project. This initiative was coordinated by this organisation to, in its words, draw a broader picture of internal and external quality assurance, and to highlight how higher education institutions and quality assurance agencies go beyond the ESG both in terms of scope and methodologies for quality assurance.

During the meeting, the main topics presented in the final publication of the QA FIT project, Quality assurance fit for the future. Key considerations for the revision of the ESG, were discussed. This clearly demonstrated the intention that the results of this project serve as a fundamental input in the official process of revision of the ESG commissioned in May 2024 by the ministers responsible for higher education in the European Higher Education Area.

Based on the results presented by the project, a large representation of the main actors who will soon be directly involved in this process put forward their point of view on various important issues addressed in this project and which are expected to be, without a doubt, the subject of discussion in the official review of the ESG.

Finally, ENQA announced its intention that its contribution to this process be structured in such a way as to offer opportunities for quality agencies to provide their opinion.

On the other hand, on 8 November, within the framework of the European initiative Implementation and Innovation in QA through peer learning (IMINQA), ANECA was invited to participate in a working session whose main objective was to address, with different agents of the European university system, in this case representatives of university alliances, governments and quality agencies, an in-depth discussion on the quality assurance of European University Alliance.

The debate focused mainly on: the current state of the internal and external quality assurance of such alliances in different EU countries; on the possibility of complementarity of new developments (such as, for example, the external evaluation framework promoted by the EUniQ project) with the current quality assurance systems and tools of the European Higher Education Area; and on the discussion of different scenarios and challenges for the future development of the internal and external quality assurance of such European University alliances.