Contents
1. Introduction

2

2. State of Play

3

Scope of the ESG......................................................................................................................................3
Structure of the ESG ............................................................................................................................. 5
3. New areas to explore

5

ESG and the social dimension ......................................................................................................... 6
ESG and the fundamental values .................................................................................................. 8
4. Open questions and areas for further discussion

10

Acknowledgements
We wish to thank the authors of this paper: Anna Gover, Jakub Grodecki,
Maria Kelo, Mirella Nordblad, Horia Onița, Melinda Szabo.
We also thank all project partners and the Expert Board members for their
feedback and insights.

The analysis is published under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons AttributionShare Alike 2.0 license: you may freely copy, distribute or alter content, provided that you give credit
to the original author and publish the (altered) content under the same terms and conditions.
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s)only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Education and Culture
Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held
responsible for them.

11. Introduction
High-quality higher education provision has been one of the key aims of the
Bologna Process since its start in 1999, and in 2020, the Ministers responsible forhigher education in the countries of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA)
confirmed their commitment to quality assurance (QA) and the implementationof the European quality assurance framework, including the Standards andGuidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area (ESG).
Today, cooperation in quality assurance within the EHEA has significantly
increased, becoming one of the most successful outcomes of the Bologna
Process, and the ESG are widely recognised as a valuable and indispensablecommon framework for developing shared criteria and methodologies.
As the ESG have proven themselves as an effective and widely implemented tool,
there have been calls to widen their scope following recent developments andtrends impacting higher education or emerging within the sector (e.g. microcredentials, sustainability, fundamental values, digitalisation, internationalisationetc.), that pose new challenges for and expectations from quality assurance. It isin this context that the QA-FIT project (Quality Assurance Fit for the Future 1) was
launched in June 2022. The goal of the project was to map the state of play ofquality assurance in the EHEA, and explore how the ESG have been used by actors
at different levels (European, national, regional, institutional) and how they are
responding to the emerging needs and trends. The project aims also to criticallyevaluate the fitness for purpose of the ESG and the possible need to extend theirscope, as well as to gather perspectives on the future of quality assurance in the
EHEA.
The first phase of the project looked at how the ESG have been adapted todifferent (national and institutional) contexts, and explored how quality assurance
activities are addressing recent and emerging issues, including those beyond thecurrent scope of the ESG. A survey to gather quantitative and qualitative data wasdesigned for each stakeholder group (institutions, QA agencies, students, andnational authorities). This paper draws on the data collected with the objective ofidentifying and analysing commonalities and divergences in the perception of
the ESG by different stakeholder groups, and the key messages that can informthe future revision of the ESG.
The response rates varied across the different stakeholder groups 2. It was a fairly
easy task to achieve a wide coverage of the European landscape from theperspective of quality assurance agencies, ministries, and national student
unions, due to their national presence and a direct link with the project partners.
The project is coordinated by the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education(ENQA). The other stakeholder partners of the project are the so-called E4 organisations (the authorsof the 2005 ESG), i.e. the European University Association (EUA), the European Association of
Institutions in Higher Education (EURASHE), and the European Students’ Union (ESU). The project
also includes the European Quality Assurance Register for Higher Education (EQAR) and a numberof national organisations as partners: the Irish Universities Association (IUA), the Finnish Education
Evaluation Centre (FINEEC), the National Alliance of Student Organisations in Romania (ANOSR),
and the Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia (associated partner).
2
The surveys were answered by 36 Ministries, 76 quality assurance agencies, 31 National Unions ofStudents, 260 Higher education institutions.
12However, the response rate from higher education institutions was significantly
lower. A total of 260 valid responses were received from 41 countries of the EHEA
(out of a total of 49). It is understandable that the responses from institutions
remained at a lower level, as it is not an expectation that institutional actors know
the ESG in detail, nor that they directly apply them in their daily work.
While the QA-FIT surveys and analyses provide an information basis from whichto consider the direction, extent and content of the revision of the ESG, it isimportant to note that this paper is based on the surveys only, and does notconstitute a proposal for the way forward towards the revision of the ESG.

2. State of PlayIn this chapter, we discuss the stakeholder groups’ (national student unions,higher education institutions, quality assurance agencies and ministries) opinions
on the relevance of the European quality assurance framework as well as
perceptions on the need for and extent of the revision of the ESG.
A clear message is that stakeholders agree on the importance of having a
European framework for quality assurance. The survey data show an especiallystrong agreement for the promotion of common standards in higher education,
stimulating enhancement of learning and teaching quality, facilitating degree
recognition, and supporting international cooperation in general. The
stakeholders also agree that the current ESG promote the development oflearning and teaching, trust in qualifications, student mobility, and thedevelopment of a quality culture. There is an overwhelming agreement that the
ESG are still needed and their importance and relevance for European higher
education is not put into question. Quite the contrary, in multiple events,
webinars and informal discussions within the QA-FIT project and other related
initiatives, the extension of the scope of the ESG has been put forward numerous
times. The assumption is that due to the success and relevance of the ESG in
implementation of some higher education reforms (such as the shift to studentcentred learning since 2015), as well as the development of quality assurance
practices at national level, there is not only an agreement on the continued
relevance of the ESG, but also discussions on the possible extension of their scope.

Scope of the ESG
The stakeholder groups expressed different needs and priorities in terms of theextension of the scope.
The majority of student respondents thought that the scope of the current ESG is
too limited, and should be significantly widened, to cover areas such as
fundamental values and the social dimension of higher education. Also themajority of QA agencies thought that the current focus of the ESG should be
expanded (although a significant minority disagreed), while less than half of HEIs
agreed. One in four ministry respondents found the scope too limited, while 70%
disagree or strongly disagree with this statement.
Overall, while recognising the need for some revision, higher education
institutions are overall the least keen on changes to the three parts of the ESG3

(50% or less in favour), with QA agencies generally in favour (about 75%), and withstudents most keen on revision (around 90% in favour). This said, there is wide
agreement among all stakeholders that the “purpose and principles” of the ESG
need only minor or no revision at all. This seems to indicate that while someadjustments need to be made, the fundamentals of the document are still
relevant and useful.
It should also be noted that not all respondents have a detailed knowledge of the
ESG: quite understandably, thus, almost 30% of the higher education institution
respondents and about 20% of student and ministry respondents replied “I don’tknow” when asked about the revision of the different parts of the ESG, against
only 5% or less of QA agencies.
When asked what they would want to be covered in more detail by the ESG, or inwhat direction to expand the scope of the ESG, the QA agencies, ministries andstudents were slightly more keen than higher education institutions on covering
new activities and aspects of higher education. This difference was the mostpronounced when considering the inclusion of “institutional management” and“institutional autonomy” in quality assurance standards.
There is also a high degree of ambiguity to the results. For QA agencies, around
80% of respondents indicated that academic freedom and integrity, lifelong
learning, digitalisation of learning and teaching, research, service to society/third
mission should be covered in more detail to a large or some extent by the ESG.
However, a similar percentage of responding agencies also indicated that these
topics are already covered by their external QA approach, to some extent or to alarge extent, suggesting that they would like to see European level standards formatters that are already being addressed by the agency.
In comparison with other stakeholders, students are more hesitant about anincreased focus on “cooperation with labour market and its relevance for higher
education” in the ESG: 53% agree to a large or to some extent with covering it inmore detail, while 34% disagree. In comparison, 70% of institutional
representatives believe this should be covered in more detail to a large or to someextent. This may be due to some students considering that there is sufficient
focus on employability, especially in comparison to the other purposes of higher
education, and a fear that increasing attention on this aspect would come at the
detriment of other policy areas. The link with the various purposes of higher
education is also evident, as the other stakeholders put a much stronger
emphasis on employability as the primary purpose of higher education incomparison with students, which prioritise personal development.
From the governmental perspective, ministry representatives also brought into
focus a wish to link the ESG more closely to the internationalisation of higher
education institutions as well as internationalisation in the work of quality
assurance agencies (going beyond ESG Part 1), the integration of AI tools in thegovernance and work of higher education institutions as well as the importanceof addressing related issues concerning data privacy and data protection.

4

Apart from the points mentioned above, all other aspects proposed in the survey(e.g. digitalisation, research, the third mission, academic freedom, etc.) see amajority of stakeholders in favour of their inclusion in the ESG. However, it isimportant to note that there is a significant minority within each stakeholder
group (between 15% and 35%) that disagree with the extension of the scope to
specifically cover the listed additional elements. There could be a number ofreasons for this, including that those topics are already covered by other quality
and monitoring tools and processes at national or European level, that they are
already implicitly covered by the ESG, or that they are included in national
standards without the need to include them also in the ESG.
It is worth reflecting on the implications of integrating additional topics into thestandards or guidelines of the ESG. On the one hand this may limit the flexibilityof the ESG and come at the cost of real or perceived deterrent of innovation or
experimentation. On the other hand, common standards on important issues areseen as necessary to increase transparency and trust. In addition, while theguidelines to the standards may provide examples and ideas of good practice,and thereby support enhancement (and potentially innovation), regardless of
how they are phrased, any additional details to the standards and/or theguidelines may lead to implicitly defining what is considered to be quality higher
education. In the revision of the ESG this should be thoroughly discussed andcarefully considered.

Structure of the ESG
The surveys also explored stakeholders’ opinions on the structure of the ESG, andspecifically the separation between standards and guidelines. There is generalagreement that guidelines are a useful element of the ESG, with a majority of
stakeholders disagreeing that the ESG should focus on standards only, and notinclude guidelines at all. Furthermore, over 50% of respondents in eachstakeholder group agreed or somewhat agreed that the ESG should provide moreguidance, although there is a significant majority that disagreed or did not know.
Suggestions that the ESG could be reduced to fewer core standards, or thatcompliance with the guidelines should be required in the same way ascompliance with the standards were met with mixed reactions. Students weremost in favour of more compliance requirements, perhaps due to their perceptionof the ESG as a tool for regulation and guarantee of educational quality, whereas
higher education institutions were generally against this proposal, perhaps as
they do not work directly with the ESG but rather with their national criteria. The
main view from the ministry side was that the ESG would need mostly only minor
revisions, at least in its guidelines (a view shared by over 50% of respondents).

3. New areas to explore
Two issues can currently be seen as ‘hot topics’ in the European higher education
policy discussions due to their societal and political relevance and attention given
through the working structures of the Bologna Process: social dimension ofhigher education, and fundamental values of higher education. In the course of
debates about how to address and uphold these issues in the EHEA, frequent
reference has been made to the role of quality assurance in promoting and5monitoring both. The sections below address each of these topics, through thelens of quality assurance stakeholders.

ESG and the social dimension
The recent adoption of the Principles and Guidelines to Strengthen the Social
Dimension of Higher Education in the European Higher Education Area (‘PAGs’),
as an annex to the Rome Communiqué in 2020, sparked renewed discussions on
to the best ways in which social dimension policies could be fostered, monitored
and enhanced at institutional and national levels, as well as the role played by
European policy tools in this endeavour.
As such, in the policy work within the Bologna Process – both in the adopted PAGs
and in the development indicators for their implementation by the Working
Group on Social Dimension, as well as in debates in the policy arena among
stakeholders, the role that quality assurance mechanisms could play to support
the social dimension of higher education has been emphasised.
As evidenced in the QA-FIT surveys for stakeholders and presented in the graphic
below (see Figure 1), social dimension is already part of quality assurance
procedures to a large or to some extent in the majority of the member states of
the Bologna Process. The results are fairly consistent with previous findings fromthe Eurydice publication ‘Towards equity and inclusion in the Higher Educationin Europe’, where it was found that 20 higher education systems have given a
mandate to quality assurance agencies to address social dimension, while in 17
systems the quality assurance agency does not have such mandate (and social
dimension is either not monitored or the responsibility of monitoring is given toanother public body). The higher percentage of systems covering social
dimension in the QA-FIT surveys can be attributed to the cases where external
quality assurance covers matters pertaining to social dimension without an
explicit mandate from the regulatory framework to do so.

Figure 1. Coverage of social dimension in external QA

At the same time, we can observe that quality assurance agencies and higher
education institutions consider that social dimension is already covered to alarger extent than students. Based on the importance put by students on the
topic, this difference can be down to expectations regarding the depth orintensity of coverage. As students generally expect a stronger emphasis on social
dimension, they tend to perceive that current frameworks cover social dimension
only to some degree.
6The surveys also delved into what concrete aspects related to social dimension
are covered in external or internal quality assurance procedures. The average
results across the four stakeholder groups show that areas such as ‘increasing
completion rates’, ‘access for students with disabilities’, ‘psychologicalcounselling and wellbeing’ and ‘antidiscrimination policies’ are part of mostquality assurance systems, with situations of ‘not at all’ coverage ranging around
15% to 20%. Other policies, such as ‘institutional strategy on social dimension’,‘monitoring concrete targets on social dimension’ and ‘data collection of social
dimension’ are apparently less prevalent, with around 25% to 35% of stakeholders
answering they are not present at all. The aspect with the lowest inclusion inquality assurance policies is related to training on equity and inclusion for bothstudents and staff.
From this data we can observe that there is a high degree of integration of social
dimension topics in quality assurance procedures, with the majority of indicatorspresent in around two thirds of systems. Furthermore, the difference between
stakeholders is a matter of perception between coverage ‘to a large extent’ or ‘tosome extent’, which could pertain to the policy focus mentioned above as well as
to subjective interpretations of the answer options. Moreover, there is a verystrong correlation between the indicators covered by internal quality assurance
and external quality assurance in relation to social dimension.
The surveys do not tell us however how social dimension is included in practice(for example, through specific indicators or transversally within other broader
policies, such as learning and teaching and student-centred learning) or the‘logic’ of intervention, and therefore this is a question still left open. The logic ofintervention could either be linked to appropriateness (quality assurance is fit to
support social dimension), normativity (inclusive higher education is part of theunderstanding/expectation related to quality higher education) or consequences(it is easier to monitor social dimension through quality assurance than throughother means).
While observing that most systems have, to a varying degree, references to social
dimension in their quality assurance provisions or practices, the next step of theanalysis was to identify the views of stakeholders on a stronger inclusion of social
dimension policies in the ESG.
The current edition of the ESG already includes references to social dimension.
The guidelines to standard 1.1 mention that policies for quality assurance should
guard against intolerance of any kind or discrimination, the guidelines tostandard 1.3 refer to respecting the diversity of students and their needs under
the concept of student-centred learning, and standard 1.6 and its guidelines coverlearning resources and student support, including resources adapted to students
with disabilities or mature students.
Stakeholders have an unanimous view that promoting common standards ofquality assurance is one of the most important objectives of the ESG, with lessthan 1% of any stakeholder group disagreeing with this statement. To this end,
the question of (the extent of) covering social dimension lies within the broader
discussion of the role of the ESG. The data mentioned above show that social
7dimension is already present in quality assurance procedures at national level inmost cases. From this viewpoint, irrespective of whether the ESG are seen as a setof minimum criteria for quality assurance or as the general standard, we canobserve that social dimension policies are present.
This is also evidenced by the opinion of stakeholders toward expanding the social
dimension policies in a revision of the ESG, specifically linked to Part I (see Figure2). The results show that at least two thirds of all stakeholders support the
proposition to a large or to some extent, while the highest degree of opposition
comes from QA agencies

Figure 2. Views on expanding coverage of social dimension in Part I of the ESG

Despite this, it is important to highlight that the answer opens a wider discussion
into what parts of such a broad policy area could and should be captured within
the standards and guidelines of the ESG. While the indicators already in use atnational level, presented above, can offer guidance on this, it is important toprioritise those elements under the umbrella of social dimension that bring themost added value to the process and can be monitored through quality
assurance.

ESG and the fundamental values
The fundamental values of higher education have been a hot topic in recent years,
particularly on a policy level, with specific working groups of the Bologna Followup Group seeking to define those values 3 and explore ways to monitor the extent
to which higher education systems respect them. As part of the discussion
around monitoring the values, the role of quality assurance has frequently been
mentioned. A careful reading of the current ESG shows that many aspects of thefundamental values are already mentioned, albeit in the guidelines and not in thestandards. The QA-FIT surveys explored further the extent to which this wasoperationalised by agencies and institutions, and whether the values should be
more directly addressed through the ESG and external QA in particular. The
student respondents were most strongly in favour of having fundamental values
explicitly addressed by external quality assurance (85% said yes). Other
stakeholder groups were overall in favour but significantly less emphatically (63%3

In the context of the Bologna Process, the fundamental values of higher education are specified
as: public responsibility for higher education, public responsibility of higher education,
participation of students and staff in higher education governance, academic integrity, academic
freedom and institutional autonomy.

8

of QA agencies, 61% of ministries and 55% of HEIs answered yes). There was also asignificant amount of uncertainty, with between 12% and 20% of respondents
answering ‘I don’t know’ (see Figure 3).

Figure 3. Support for addressing fundamental values in the ESG

Quality assurance agencies indicated that several aspects of the fundamental
values are already covered to a large extent through their own external QA
activities, most notably student participation in governance (67%), staff
participation in governance (64%) and institutional autonomy (57%). The issue
that is reported by QA agencies as being least addressed is that of democratic
and free elections at all levels within higher education. However, it is interesting
to note that in some cases, ministries and students did not have the same
perceptions as to the coverage of fundamental values by external QA, withstudents in particular reporting them to be addressed to a lesser extent thanperceived by QA agencies. This is particularly evident in the topic of student
participation in higher education governance. Sixty seven percent (67%) ofagencies report that they cover it to a large extent, while only 45% of national
student unions believe that to be the case. These differences may be in part due
to differing levels of knowledge about the external QA standards and criteria as
well as differing interpretations of the answer options (address ‘to a large extent’,‘to some extent’ and ‘not at all’).
In terms of internal quality assurance, over 80% of higher education institutions
responded that the aspects named in the survey were covered to a large extent
or to some extent by their internal QA processes. The aspects that were addressed
the least were institutional autonomy and democratic and free elections at alllevels within higher education institutions, with 11% and 12% of institutions
reporting that these were not addressed at all, which still points to a rather
substantial coverage among the responding institutions.
As well as being addressed through internal quality assurance, additionalcomments provided by QA agencies noted that many issues linked tofundamental values were already addressed in some other way through thenational legal framework and therefore it was not considered to be within thescope of the QA agencies to evaluate them. Furthermore, other observations by
QA agencies highlight the complication of evaluating fundamental values
specifically through external quality assurance, including: the difficulty ofoperationalising values into criteria for evaluation, the need to consider what is
9within the control of an higher education institution (rather than the broader
system or society), the different types of agencies and theirs remits, anddifferentiation between evaluating fundamental values and otherwise upholding
or safeguarding them.
Institutions consider fundamental values as largely part of institutional (quality)
culture, and that they are addressed through institutional mission statements aswell as national level regulations. The differences between stakeholder answers
may also be due to their different positions in the QA framework: students’reflections may have been guided more by the policy-level considerations, while
it is likely that QA agencies brought more practical considerations into their views.
In addition, while methodological questions might be more complicated for someof the values, they may be more easily established for others, such as for example
staff and student participation. These differences will also need to be taken into
account when considering their potential inclusion into the ESG and system level
QA criteria and processes.

4. Open questions and areas for further discussion
The surveys give us some basic information regarding the position of the different
stakeholders groups and users of the ESG regarding the relevance of theEuropean quality assurance framework and the future revision needs. However,
the information should be complemented through other means, as not all
respondents have the same level of experience in quality assurance and/or know
the ESG in detail. The survey data were inconclusive as to which elements should
be definitely covered in the revised ESG, as many topics are considered important.
More information and discussions within and between stakeholder groups areneeded to ensure that the future quality assurance framework for the EHEA is fit
for purpose, and fit for the future. The focus group meetings and additional
consultation processes conducted within the QA-FIT project will provide
important further input on the key topics identified through the survey.
Some of these key topics and further discussion questions are outlined below
under three headings.
1) Purpose of the ESG
Are the ESG principally a tool for international cooperation by providing acommon European framework? To what extent should they set basic
requirements for national quality assurance systems? Should they be a tool todevelop and enhance systems, through good practice and innovation, or focus
on achievement of minimum standards of quality? And if so, could all these
expectations be addressed by the ESG?
Across all stakeholder groups, a majority attach great importance to the
purpose of a European framework in promoting common standards (around
80% find this very important). At the same time, only around 40-50% consider
it very important that it encourages innovation and experimentation. The ESG
may be thus considered currently more a compliance and accountability tool,
while also providing elements of good practice in guidelines.
10A related reflection regards the interplay between the ESG and existing
national and regional frameworks and standards for quality assurance, as wellas their connection to other instruments for monitoring and quality that exist
at European or other levels. This topic is often addressed in discussions about
innovation: while the ESG provides a common framework and sets certain
parameters, they are not per se constraining innovation in quality assurance.
It will also be important to consider whether and to what extent the different
interpretations of the ESG (their purpose, principles and individual standards)
may be creating perceived limitations. Duplication should be avoided, andawareness of the different roles of the existing tools would need to be
improved.
2) Scope of the ESG
What would be the main reasons to widen the scope of the ESG, and whichareas would be most important to include explicitly and/or through specificstandards? What relation do the ESG have with our conception of quality inhigher education and is there a risk that the ESG drift from being standards
for quality assurance towards being standards for quality itself? Whatconsequences can we foresee in widening the scope, in terms of wide
acceptance, maintaining centrality of learning and teaching, and of changing(or not) the nature of QA as we know it in terms of methods and approaches?
What consequences can we foresee in not widening the scope, in terms ofcontinued relevance and support for international cooperation.
In terms of considering the level of detail of the ESG, and inclusion of newelements, it is important to remember that the document should remain
relevant for a sufficiently long period of time. The ESG is a document that
requires significant consultation and political endorsement to change, so afrequent revision is not feasible, nor desirable.
3) Structure of the ESG
Is the current structure (in three parts) useful and helpful? How detailed
should the standards be and what will be the role of the guidelines? Are theguidelines the best approach to explain and interpret the standards? Should
there be more guidelines and/or other forms of guidance within the ESG
and/or as a separate document? What benefits and risks are there in having
additional guidelines and accompanying documents for different
stakeholders, for example for different types of higher education institutionsor quality assurance agencies, or different formats of education such as microcredentials?
In this context it will be important to consider the impact and consequencesof major or minor changes to the ESG. Would this lead to the need to change
also other related tools (such as the European Approach for Quality Assuranceof Joint Programmes)? What about regional frameworks in other parts of theworld, which may be well aligned with the current ESG? What will be theimpact of the changes for countries/agencies that are still on the road tocompliance with the current version of the ESG, considering potential
11difficulty in making changes to legal frameworks required to implement a newversion, and what would be the consequences for EQAR and ENQA, which use
the ESG as criteria for inclusion and membership respectively? These are notreasons not to make changes, but they need to be carefully kept in mind andthe implications thoroughly examined.

1213