International strategy
Since its inception, the NVAO has assigned high priority to European quality assurance and internationalisation. Both the binational character of the organisation and the international orientation of Dutch and Flemish higher education make this self-evident. In its various strategies, this international dimension has always been a strategic objective. Special attention has been given to promoting and complying with the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area, but also to quality assurance of international joint programmes, mutual recognition of diplomas, dissemination of good practices, and collaborations with other quality assurance organisations.
strategic objective
However, internationalisation is not an end in itself. For the NVAO, internationalisation is primarily a means to always organise the best possible quality assurance. This strategic objective encourages the NVAO to closely monitor European developments and, where relevant, also contribute to steering them. This requires a systematic attendance policy. The NVAO ought to be where decisions are made and where it is important to take part in. The NVAO therefore ought to be an active participant in European developments in the field of quality assurance. This also applies to higher education developments that could impact quality assurance.
Relevant and lasting contributions
The implementation of the NVAO's internationalisation policy has yielded relevant and lasting contributions to European quality assurance. The NVAO did this by actively contributing to European developments and by pioneering in the methodological advancement of quality assurance for Europe. This can be seen in several developments over the past two decades.
Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area (ESG)
The European Standards and Guidelines address one of the six objectives of the Bologna Declaration: the development of comparable criteria and assessment methodologies. The NVAO contributed to the development of the European Standards and Guidelines, both to the first version, approved by the European ministers in 2005, and to the revision, approved in 2015. The NVAO explicitly aims to comply with and to demonstrate that it operates within this framework. In 2007, the European ministers of education launched the European Quality Assurance Register (EQAR) as part of the Bologna Process. EQAR is the official register of quality assurance organisations that comply with the European Standards and Guidelines. For this purpose, quality assurance organisations must be assessed themselves. The NVAO was one of the first three organisations to request and undergo such an assessment and was then the first to be included in EQAR. Since then, the NVAO has been positively assessed every five years.
Database for assessment reports and decisions
Mutual recognition of accreditation decisions has been a point of attention since the start of the NVAO. Therefore, the NVAO started publishing its assessment reports and decisions from the beginning, even before this became mandatory under the European Standards and Guidelines. With European funding, the NVAO developed a database template that other quality assurance organisations could copy to publish their own assessment reports and decisions. All these assessment reports and decisions also appeared on a joint publication platform called Qrossroads. This experience was used for the inception of the Database for European Quality Assurance Results (DEQAR, www.deqar.eu). DEQAR has now become the official European publication platform where all quality assurance organisations must publish their assessment reports.
Automatic mutual recognition of degrees
Although the NVAO was a binational organisation, it also had to work on establishing mutual trust between the higher education and quality assurance systems of The Netherlands and Flanders. Therefore, the NVAO also sees quality assurance as an important basis for the mutual recognition of degrees. Publishing assessment reports and decisions provides the necessary transparency and was a lever in 2012 for including automatic mutual recognition of degrees in the NVAO’s founding treaty. The NVAO worked primarily with NARIC-Flanders and Nuffic Netherlands for this purpose. Together, they were the driving force behind the realisation of the Benelux Recognition Area. This Recognition Area was expanded in 2021 to include the Baltic countries. The Benelux-Baltic Recognition Area formally started in 2024. The members of this Recognition Area invite other countries to join them.
quality assurance of international joint programmes
Another point of attention is the quality assurance of international joint programmes or parts of programmes (joint programmes). These are programmes jointly organised and offered by institutions from different countries. These programmes have existed for a long time and saw a significant increase with the inception of Erasmus Mundus (2004). However, assessing the quality of this type of programme was a challenge. From the beginning, the NVAO decided to work with European partners for this purpose. If the diverse quality assurance systems of the different education systems had been deployed each time, it would have led to an almost continuous assessment of these international joint programmes, especially when it came to large collaborations. The NVAO once assessed a programme offered by 41 institutions. Since 2007, the NVAO has initiated projects to develop a better-coordinated approach for the quality assurance of these international joint programmes. The goal was that not all institutions in each partner country would have to undergo an assessment for the same joint programme. These projects led to the Single Accreditation Procedure for Joint Programmes in 2012. This became the basis for the European Approach for Quality Assurance of Joint Programmes, the assessment framework committed to by the European ministers within the Bologna process. The NVAO is one of the quality assurance organisations with the most experience in using the European Approach and continues to work with it extensively.
Certificate for Quality in Internationalisation
From the start, the NVAO could award special quality features in addition to its accreditation decisions. Since many programmes requested internationalization as a special feature, the NVAO developed the Certificate for Quality in Internationalisation (CeQuInt) in 2015 together with its European partners. The main goal of CeQuInt is to assess and recognise the quality of internationalisation within higher education. In this context, internationalisation refers to the integration of an international and intercultural dimension into education and thus should impact its quality. This certificate is still awarded by the European Consortium for Accreditation in higher education (ECA).
European University Alliances
In 2019, the NVAO started an international project to develop appropriate quality assurance for the new "European Universities" that emerged from the European Universities Initiative. Due to the similarities with international joint programmes, namely collaboration across borders and quality assurance systems, the NVAO expected the same issues as with the assessment of international joint programmes. Therefore, a European assessment framework for the quality assurance of the European Universities was developed within the project: the Comprehensive Framework for the Quality Assurance of European Universities (EUniQ framework). This assessment methodology is aimed at the multi-campus characteristics and the extensive missions of these new European Universities. It also provides institutions with a tool to organise themselves and ensure their own quality. The NVAO has tested this assessment framework in four pilot procedures. It currently forms the European reference framework for quality assurance within European Universities.European Degree
In 2022, the European Commission launched the idea of developing and issuing European degrees (European Degree). The European Degree would make it easier for students to work in any member state of the European Union. In 2023, six EU-funded projects started to develop this European Degree. The NVAO participated in four of the six projects to be able to follow the development and maintain a grip on it. In the future, the NVAO intends to closely follow the further development and potential of the European Degree.
Overview of key developments and contributions
Outlook
European higher education is, of course, always evolving. Yet, from the perspective of the NVAO, there are a number of important European developments that the NVAO continues to closely monitor and, where relevant and possible, help to adjust.
Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area
The original European Standards and Guidelines from 2005 were revised in 2015. Almost 10 years have passed since then. Therefore, European higher education stakeholders are currently rethinking the relevance of the current ESG. The question is whether and, if so, what changes are needed to keep the European Standards and Guidelines future-proof. As the NVAO, we must ensure that the European Standards and Guidelines continues to support development within institutions and does not create additional burdens. Therefore, the NVAO is currently actively contributing to the evaluation of the European Standards and Guidelines and will do so if stakeholders deem it necessary to revise the European Standards and Guidelines.
Database for European Quality Assurance Results (DEQAR)
Publishing accreditation reports and decisions in DEQAR has now become common practice for 31 European quality assurance organisations. EQAR, as the organisation responsible for DEQAR, is currently expanding the database to include all forms of education to which the European Standards and Guidelines apply. The NVAO is closely following this evolution. The NVAO considers DEQAR the ideal means to provide transparency about the quality of institutions and programmes in Europe. This transparency is also important for the recognition of degrees abroad. Therefore, the NVAO continues to promote the importance of DEQAR as a publication platform.
automatic mutual recognition of higher education degrees
The Bologna Process has been working on the recognition of degrees in Europe for twenty-five years. Unfortunately, there is still no automatic mutual recognition like that of the Benelux and the Baltic states. Therefore, in 2018, the Council of Ministers of the European Union came up with the Recommendation on promoting automatic mutual recognition of qualifications and learning periods abroad. This recommendation refers to the example of the Benelux and requests member states to take measures to introduce automatic mutual recognition by 2025 at the latest. That deadline has not been met. Since that recommendation in 2018, the only step forward appears to be the Benelux-Baltic Recognition Area. It does not seem that substantial improvements can be expected in the short term. The NVAO will support the further expansion of the Benelux-Baltic Recognition Area from its position as a quality assurance organisation.
European Approach for Quality Assurance of Joint Programmes
The number of international joint programmes is growing but is still limited. In 2015, ministers called for enabling the use of the European Approach for Quality Assurance of Joint programmes and recognizing the resulting (accreditation) decisions. Despite this call, full recognition often remains a cumbersome and bureaucratic process. There are still countries that do not allow the use of the European Approach. In many other countries, there are (legal) restrictions, or additional national criteria need to be added to the assessment. The latter also applies to the Netherlands. The fact that the use of the European Approach is not yet legally permitted in all countries remains a huge challenge, both for institutions and for quality assurance organisations. From the NVAO, we continue to advocate for the unconditional use of the European Approach, also in the Netherlands, including the mutual recognition of the resulting (accreditation) decisions.
European University Alliances
A large group of higher education institutions in the Netherlands (24), Flanders (13), and Luxembourg (2) are now officially part of a European University recognised by the European Union. In March 2024, the European Commission proposed a Proposal for a Council Recommendation on a European quality assurance and recognition system in higher education. This recommendation suggests developing a single European assessment framework for European Universities. This should become a sort of European Approach but for the assessment of the quality assurance and educational activities of European Universities. The NVAO, with its leading role in the development of the EUniQ Framework, intends to contribute to this development and continue to support it.
European Degree (label)
It is clear that the European Commission will continue to work on the criteria for a European Degree. The NVAO keeps an eye on these developments and the possible impact they may have on the work of quality assurance organisations. The NVAO remains committed to facilitating developments in higher education and closely aligning quality assurance policy with the evolving policies of governments and institutions.
Conclusion
The NVAO has effectively proven that ,as a quality assurance organisation, it is possible to work within distinct higher education systems and various legislative frameworks. Even though the underlying assessment methodologies are similar, the NVAO has developed three very different quality assurance systems for the Netherlands, Flanders, and Luxembourg. The NVAO believes it is essential to align as closely as possible with the (legal) context in which the assessments need to be organised. The way the NVAO handles such diversity demonstrates our exemplary added value for Europe’s diverse higher education. Over the past twenty years, the NVAO has made substantial contributions to European developments and has co-developed many parts of the European quality assurance landscape. This also makes the NVAO a point of reference when it comes to quality assurance in Europe. It is our intention to remain that point of reference.