First Workshop with European Universities organised in Rome
On 23-24 October 2019 the first Workshop with European Universities and the EUniQ project partners took place in Rome. The workshop was organised by ANVUR, ENQA and NVAO at the Rectorate building of the Sapienza University in Rome. All alliances had registered for the Workshop; this was the first time the European Universities met as a group since the announcement of the selection results.
Before the workshop the alliances had given their input by responding to a short questionnaire which is summarised in a Background paper. After the welcome addresses and overview of the project four alliances shared their perspectives on quality assurance with the participants. The workshop continued with a presentation by NVAO of the building blocks for a framework for comprehensive QA of the European Universities, followed by indepth discussions in parallel sessions. The following day the results of these discussions were presented plenary. There was agreement that the QA framework in this start-up phase of European Universities must have an enhancement focus and the four pilot evaluations of European Universities should assist the development of the internal QA system of the alliances. The pilots are a learning experience and the results should not influence the funding decisions of the European Commission. It is also important that the framework and resulting evaluation will be lean and mindful of the internal QA of the alliance, avoiding duplications and unnecessary additional work. The QA framework should take the different strategies of the alliances selected by the European Commission as a given.
The main focus of the evaluations will be on the implementation, internal evaluation (including the ESG) and improvement policy of the alliances. The evaluations will respect that alliances have different QA approaches (“many roads lead to Rome”). The participants agreed that the presented draft framework with the standards and reference points are a good basis for further elaboration, taking into account the comments made at the workshop and further remarks by the participants in the coming weeks. By the end of 2019 the project partners in the Roadmap Group will finalise the framework that will be applied in the four pilot evaluations in 2020.
The pilots and the framework will be evaluated, also from the perspective that the ultimate aim of a European Framework for Comprehensive QA of European Universities is that it should lead to one European QA procedure that can be used for fulfilling national QA requirements.
The workshop ended with discussions of the pilots and procedural aspects, and the concluding remarks. In the afternoon of the second day the project groups (Roadmap Group and Resonance Group) met to further discuss the planning, pilot procedures and specific work and timelines of the groups. All in all, the workshop was a good start of a co creative process in which alliances, QA agencies, ministries and European stakeholders work together on the QA development of European Universities.
The Background Paper and the presentations that were made during the workshop are published here:
