This article describes the current debates taking place in the revision process of the European quality assurance framework (specifically, the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area), focusing on questions related to the evaluation and assessment of fundamental academic values through quality assurance standards.

In the past two decades, European higher education cooperation has been significantly facilitated by the creation and use of a common framework for quality assurance, one that is quite unlike any other regional framework in the world. It is stakeholder-created and stakeholder-driven, accepted as the shared framework by 49 higher education systems across Europe, and includes a voluntary regulatory system. Its key components are the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance (known as the ESG) in the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), adopted in 2005 and revised in 2015, and the European Quality Assurance Register, founded by the main European stakeholder bodies in 2007.

The ESG have guided the development of quality assurance systems across Europe and supported the creation of both a common language and a shared understanding of the key components required at different levels to ensure and demonstrate quality in a transparent, fair, and reliable manner. The strong role of stakeholders in both the drafting of the ESG documents, as well as in their implementation at different levels (European, national, institutional), has supported the building of a community of practitioners and researchers that believe in the framework and its benefits.

Current Revisions

No matter the strength of the standards, regular revision of any quality assurance standards is considered advisable. In this spirit, the EHEA ministerial conference in Tirana, Albania, in May 2024, mandated the authors of the ESG to revise the document once more. The changes in the higher education sector, as well as in the societal context, have brought up a long and complex wish-list of topics to be addressed in a future edition of the ESG. While the authors of the ESG stress that not everything that is important for and in higher education can or should be addressed by European-level quality standards, a number of specific topics, such as the social dimension of higher education (including student rights, support, and diversity) and digitalization, deserve to be considered for inclusion in the forthcoming ESG 2027.

A Focus on Academic Values

Perhaps the most interesting and complex topic under discussion is a more explicit integration of fundamental (academic) values—such as academic freedom, public responsibility of and for higher education, participation of stakeholders in higher education governance, and academic integrity—into the ESG. Even in their current format, the ESG are deeply connected to the fundamental values of higher education. The ESG emphasize transparency, accountability, and the centrality of students in the learning processes, all of which align with core values such as academic freedom, inclusion, and democratic participation. Indeed, by ensuring quality and fostering trust in higher education institutions across borders, the ESG help strengthen the European Higher Education Area as a space built on cooperation, mutual recognition, and shared values.

At the same time, there is a strong feeling that Europe has changed since 2015 and that values which we had been taking for granted have been shaken by wars, nationalism, and the questioning of scientific evidence and academic freedom. Institutional autonomy, freedom of research, and public responsibility of and for higher education are no longer automatically respected all across the EHEA, and it is necessary to discuss whether and to what extent the fundamental values should be addressed through explicit standards and requirements within the ESG.

Despite—or rather, because of—the importance of this topic, the technical and conceptual issues related to the integration of fundamental values into the ESG need to be carefully discussed. What kind of standards should be in place, and what kind of indicators and evidence can be reasonably and reliably provided to assess compliance with them? Are the current quality assurance processes, which still rely highly on national agencies, independent as they may be, appropriate to monitor adherence to fundamental values?

Questions about values are particularly acute in the context of international cooperation, which has also undergone significant evolution in the past few years. On the one hand, many European universities are now engaged in more in-depth international cooperation, with the support of the European Universities’ Initiative and the establishment of over 60 European university alliances. On the other hand (and for very different reasons), cooperation and conditions for cooperation with institutions outside of our continent need to address concerns and match regulations related to national security and the use of research results. Could the introduction of fundamental academic values into the ESG support international cooperation? Indeed, what would international cooperation look like in the next decade without a solid foundation of shared values?

Maria Kelo is director of institutional development at the European University Association (EUA). E-mail: [email protected].