The further development of internationalisation policies and programmes in higher education is conditional on the integration of quality assurance procedures beyond national borders. Quality assurance processes should ensure that institutions and courses meet minimal quality standards, allowing a certain level of public confidence among potential students, employers, authorities, taxpayers answering to a consumer protection approach and contributing to the need of convergence in European higher education. It is oriented mainly at the interest of authorities and institutions and less often directed to the needs of users and partners.
Accreditation can be a process concerning the whole institution or programmes.
It ensures a minimal or average quality level or may also promotes high quality standards. Both processes are running in parallel and none of the two leads automatically to the other one. Accreditation plays the role of a filter, ensuring that basic requirements are being met by higher education institutions. This system has modelled other national systems, as in Hong Kong for example. In some Western European countries, the need for institutions to get formal approval to grant degrees in certain disciplines may be considered as some kind of accreditation.