Background

As part of its own quality assurance cycle, ANQHE is committed to implement cyclical external reviews of the ANQHE Reviews, coordinated by an external organisation. The external reviews follow the principle set out in ESG 3.7, that “agencies should undergo an external review at least once every five years in order to demonstrate their compliance with the ESG”. ANQHE should be able to demonstrate it meets the same requirement as set for its member agencies. For this reason, ANQHE underwent its first external review in 2019, and is currently preparing for the second one in 2024.

The purpose of the external review is to evaluate the various activities and procedures of the ANQHE Reviews with the intention to support the improvement of its usefulness and fitness-for-purpose. In order to do so, the review process and its final report should assess, on the one hand, how the principles outlined in the standards of ESG Parts 2 and 3 for quality assurance agencies are reflected in the reviews of agencies (while adapting them to the context and work of ENQA) and, on the other hand, how far the ANQHE Reviews contribute to the improvement of quality assurance agencies and allow for innovative approaches to quality assurance processes.

2024 external review

The 2024 external review of ANQHE Reviews is coordinated by the Knowledge Innovation Centre (KIC).

ANQHE will submit its self-assessment report in September 2024.

The site visit of the external review panel is expected to take place in Brussels, Belgium in December 2024.

The external review report from the panel of experts is expected to be completed and approved by the Steering Committee by March 2025.

2019 external review

In 2019, ANQHE underwent an external evaluation of its  review process for the first time. The review was coordinated by NIFU (the Nordic Institute for Studies and Innovation, Research and Education) and conducted by an international expert panel of quality assurance stakeholders.

As a basis for the review, ANQHE prepared a self-assessment report. A site visit took place in September 2019, and the final report was published in December 2019.

As a result of the review, ANQHE made several changes to the  reviews:

• Revising the review methodology, including unbundling the review process from the membership decision-making; clarifying the aims and objectives of progress visits; changing the compliance assessment scale and establishing the  Review Committee
• Preparing a policy on internal quality assurance of ANQHEReviews
• Improving the visibility of procedures for appeals and complaints.

Documents