EQAR is a non-voting member of the Bologna Follow-Up Group.

Official website

EQAR - The European Quality Assurance Register for Higher Education

In most European countries, higher education institutions or study programmes are subject to regular external review by a quality assurance agency. The European Quality Assurance Register for Higher Education (EQAR) is a register of such agencies, listing those agencies that have demonstrated their substantial compliance with a common set of principles for quality assurance in Europe. These principles are laid down in the European Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area (ESG).

EQAR aims to provide the public with clear and reliable information on quality assurance agencies operating in Europe, and the register is therefore web-based and freely accessible.

 The Register has been established to: 

• promote student mobility by providing a basis for the increase of trust among higher education institutions; 
• reduce opportunities for “accreditation mills” to gain credibility;
• provide a basis for governments to authorise higher education institutions to choose any agency from the Register, if that is compatible with national arrangements;
• provide a means for higher education institutions to choose between different agencies, if that is compatible with national arrangements;
• serve as an instrument to improve the quality of agencies and to promote mutual trust among them. 

DEQAR – EQAR's Database of External Quality Assurance Results

In 2018, EQAR launched a new database to be found directly on the EQAR website. DEQAR is the Database of External Quality Assurance Results on activities performed by EQAR-registered quality assurance agencies. DEQAR not only collects their reports and decisions but also helps to understand reports in their context by describing the national QA frameworks of the EHEA countries.  

"We are glad about the keen interest and commitment by the participating quality assurance agencies. The database is an important milestone towards enhanced transparency and recognition solutions in the European Higher Education Area (EHEA)" 

says Karl Dittrich, President of EQAR.

 The wider benefits of DEQAR are manifold: 

• Faster and more efficient recognition process, thanks to the one-stop shop access to QA results and reports. 
• Increase of trust and transparency in QA of higher education. 
• Foster student and HEI-staff mobility and employability. 
• Working towards a Knowledge Hub of higher education systems.

Watch the DEQAR explainer video (Lifelong Learning in less than two minutes) created to depict and promote the database in an easy to understand, engaging way.