European Alliance of Subject Specific and Professional Accreditation
We are pleased to announce that the next General Assembly will take place online on Tuesday, 9 December, from 10:00 to 12:30.
All members are warmly invited to attend. The General Assembly will provide an opportunity to review the past year, discuss future plans, and make important decisions together.
Further details, including the agenda and access link, will be shared in due course. We look forward to your active participation and valuable contributions.
On 14 July 2025, EASPA and ASIIN hosted an international webinar on disciplinary quality assurance in higher education, attracting a large and engaged audience from various European disciplinary networks. The event provided an excellent platform for members, prospective members, and international guests to exchange ideas on the future direction of field-specific quality assurance.
The programme included insightful presentations on recent initiatives and projects within the EASPA network:
Updates from member organisations and applications from prospective networks such as the Silva Network rounded off the agenda. The lively discussions highlighted the importance of disciplinary networks and their role in promoting excellence in higher education worldwide.
On 19 September 2024, EASPA held its General Assembly, bringing together representatives from its member organisations and international guests to discuss recent developments and future initiatives in disciplinary quality assurance. The agenda can be accessed here.
Key highlights included updates from the Secretary General on global trends in accreditation, such as emerging field-specific agencies in Indonesia and the Philippines, and opportunities for collaboration with partners in Thailand. The successful EASPA/ASIIN International Day of Higher Education Disciplinary Quality Assurance in April 2024 was also reviewed, with particular attention given to innovative initiatives like the Eurolecturer Academy, European excellence seals for “top-up” procedures, and the launch of the ASIIN Academy for professional development programmes.
The Assembly welcomed presentations from member networks, including SILVA, ECTE, and ECTN, who shared insights into their work in forestry, theological education, and chemistry, respectively. Additionally, financial matters were addressed, and the budgets for 2024/25 as well as the membership fees for 2025 were approved (subject to confirmation by online voting).
Leadership changes were confirmed with Taco Brandsen (EAPAA) elected as Vice-President and Cristina Femoni (ECTN) joining the Executive Board. The discussion concluded with a forward-looking agenda for 2025, focusing on expanding EASPA’s global reach and fostering joint initiatives across disciplines.
The year 2024 has been earmarked to rejuvenate and strategically reorient EASPA. As a first, but highly important measure, we invite all members and potential members as well as international guests from Asia, Africa and the United States to the EASPA/ASIIN International Day of Higher Education Disciplinary Quality Assurance in the city of Düsseldorf on April 8th 2024. The whole event with high calibre speakers and multiple contributions of EASPA members will be rounded off by an exciting social program.
The corresponding agenda can be found here. It provides for each EASPA organisation to be represented by one or more members with a short presentation. Subsequently, speeches on the following topics will lead to a fruitful discussion: Importance and Advantages of a Disciplinary Approach to Quality Assurance in Higher Education; How to best make use of an International field-specific assurance seal in “top-up” procedures: The European Chemistry Thematic Network Association and EASPA as promoters of excellent field-specific didactics in Higher Education: the Eurolecturer Academy as a new model; Revolutionary new ways of jointly offering & marketing continuous education of EASPA members; New models for “Testing Achieved Learning Outcomes: the case of medical education” (suggestions for & by EASPA members) as well as News in Disciplinary Professional Quality Assurance around the Globe (Asia, Africa and United States).
On 18 September 2023, the last EASPA webinar took place, during which the General Secretary of the Alliance, Dr Wasser, presented the considerable extent to which the organisation, founded by ASIIN in 2011, unites European umbrella associations that deal with quality assurance on the basis of agreed transnational learning outcomes/professional competence profiles. After initially referring to the European Qualifications Framework and then to the respective national qualifications frameworks in the Single European Education Area, the networks belonging to EASPA have developed their own subject-specific criteria in a third step. Current initiatives of the European Commission are currently aiming to develop sub-disciplinary qualifications frameworks in a fourth step, particularly in booming areas such as artificial intelligence or software engineering.
The corresponding presentation can be found here.
The next EASPA General Assembly will take place on 4 December 2023. The corresponding agenda can be downloaded here.
after the technical problems in the first attempt forced us to postpone, EASPA hereby cordially invites all current and potential new EASPA members to participate in its first webinar on May 4th, from 10 -12.30 o´clock (CEST).
You can join the meeting via computer, tablet or smartphone by simply clicking on the following link: https://global.gotomeeting.com/join/753849037 shortly before 10 c´clock on the meeting day.
Programme:
Colin Tück, the Secretary General of the European Register EQAR and I myself will join hands in our joint presentation on “New Developments in European Quality Assurance: Innovative Ways to synergize International Recognition Procedures”, where we would like to discuss with you some new ideas of how to best combine various recognition procedures such as our own Network Authorization Procedure and other forms of European Agency Reviews like the review to become a member of the European Quality Assurance Register. The common element in all these reviews is obviously a compliance test against the European Standards and Guidelines.
Jutta Breyer, the coordinator will give an overview of the new “European Software Skills Alliance” as an example on how to design and implement a comprehensive educational European framework, combining the perspectives of universities, employers, ERIC/NARICs etc. in a unique way and developing new educational programs on the way as model for other disciplines to follow suite.
Prof. Rui Costa as Secretary General of the global International Food Association (IFA),will present its QA system for food science and engineering and provide an overview concerning its ongoing activities (Accreditation, European projects, conferences, online course databases, ejournals) as does
Prof. John Butler, C.E.O. of EQA Arts, about new European QA developments in the European Higher Arts Education Arts Landscape.
As EASPA plans to establish a series of webinars, which will take place in a regular rhythm, current and potential new members are invited to send proposals for future webinar themes and presentations to gf@asiin.de.
During its General Assembly on 16 October 2020, EASPA members voted unanimously in favour of acceptance of three new member organizations. With EQ-Arts (concerned with quality assurance in arts programmes), ADEE (the association for dental education in Europe), and Iuventum (a UNESCO-associated organization for the promotion of global education), EASPA has significantly increased its multi-disciplinary perspective in professional and subject-specific quality assurance.
The president, the members of the executive board, and all other member organizations look forward to working with these new partners!