Welcome

It is a pleasure to welcome you to EQAF 2023, the annual event in quality assurance organised by EUA, ENQA, ESU, and EURASHE. This year’s EQAF will focus on ‘Internationalisation in a changing world. New trends and challenges for QA’.

The University of Aveiro is proud of hosting this landmark event in quality assurance. The theme is very timely: internationalisation has been a major trend in higher education for many years, and there is a real need to discuss opportunities and challenges for quality assurance in this increasingly international context.

Quality assurance agencies, researchers, students and practitioners will certainly enjoy the sessions, workshops and presentations that will set the stage for an in-depth analysis of quality assurance and internationalisation. We do hope that the pleasant campus of the University of Aveiro and the nearby lagoon and canals will help in creating additional opportunities for discussion, outside the formal programme, in a beautiful natural setting.

The University of Aveiro is itself an international institution. In research, we are part of an extended set of international cooperation networks, which we see as key forums for the building of strong and impactful collaborations. Our network of partners is global, and the activities carried out within this network are very diverse. In the period 2019-2022, the research output of the University of Aveiro involved 4192 institutions from 140 countries and five continents. We are part of ECIU University, one of the first European Universities, in the sense of the European Universities Initiative. About 15% of our 17,000 students come from other countries. At the start of each academic year, about 95 different nationalities meet at our campi.

Immersed in international world, we fully understand the need to develop new and flexible approaches to transnational joint degrees. We recognise the importance of enabling and supporting deeper cooperation arrangements with a growing pool of international partners. We are aware of the difficulties created by the very different nature of our higher education systems, and we understand the pressure to address new forms of higher education and mobility, such as micro-credentials and virtual mobility. So do all other participants.

The stage is set, the players are ready. I wish you all a great EQAF here at the University of Aveiro.

Paulo Jorge Ferreira

Rector of the University of Aveiro

 

EQAF 2023 will combine sessions about policies and trends, research, and practical case examples related to the Forum theme and more generally about current developments in quality assurance.

Internationalisation has been a major trend in higher education for decades: cross-country mobility of students and academic staff has grown, cooperation between institutions and states has intensified, and, in general, transnational sharing of good practice in learning and teaching and research has increased. Both within and outside the EHEA, internationalisation brings opportunities and challenges for quality assurance. These range from the urgency of developing new and flexible approaches for transnational joint degrees to the need to enable and support more intense cooperation arrangements across very different higher education systems, as well as addressing new forms of higher education and mobility, such as micro-credentials or different forms of virtual mobility.

EQAF 2023 will explore QA policies and practices that support new forms of internationalisation, and invite the audience to reflect on how quality assurance can meet emerging needs and arising challenges in the sector. The Forum will address questions such as how QA can promote sustainability in transnational mobility and cooperation, if the ESG and other European tools are fit for the future, and how the European framework can connect and compare with quality assurance outside the EHEA. EQAF 2023 offers the opportunity to discuss how to innovate in quality assurance according to the different priorities of various stakeholders involved in the internationalisation of higher education, and how to internationalise quality assurance itself.

This year’s Forum will take place on-site and will provide participants with opportunities for discussion, debates and networking, also outside the formal programme. The sessions will facilitate audience interaction to allow participants to gain the most from the event.

The Forum will be of interest to rectors and vice-rectors responsible for quality assurance, quality assurance officers in higher education institutions, students, quality assurance agency staff and researchers working in higher education or in the quality assurance field.

For updates, please follow @EQAF and #EQAF on Twitter and/or join the LinkedIn group “European Quality Assurance Forum (EQAF)”.

 

Organisers