Collaborating in a “meta-organisation”: IQA on the level of a European university alliance
The international dimension of quality assurance in Europe has been a key element of the European Higher Education Area for more than two decades now.
In the outline for an “European Approach for Quality Assurance of Joint Programmes”, which the Ministers of the EHEA adopted in 2015, the international dimension was further promoted, encouraging and requiring higher education institutions and agencies to collaborate across national systems and legislature.
However, the focus so far has been largely on external assessments. With the European Universities Initiative, this started to shift, as alliances began exploring options for aligned and/or alliance level internal quality assurance (IQA) systems.
This paper will delve deeper into the issue of challenges for collaborative internal quality assurance, which go far beyond the legal and technical difficulties of sharing data, and include important differences in culture, organization design and methodological emphasis. Drawing on the authors’ own experience as delegates to the Quality Board of the ENGAGE.EU European university alliance, the paper presents some carefully selected “lessons learned” on how an internal quality assurance system for a multi-institutional environment can be developed and taken to the next level, while paying heed to the different national legal systems and cultures and the European level discourse.
This paper was presented at EQAF and reflects the views of the named authors only.
ISSN: 1375-3797
