In mid-June 2026, the European Commission published the Operational Guide for the Joint European Degree Label, providing the operational detail needed to move the label from policy design towards implementation. 

The guide sets out, in detail, the requirements for the award of the Joint European Degree Label, a quality label that will be granted to joint programmes delivered through transnational cooperation between higher education institutions from at least two EU member states or states party to the EEA Agreement. The Joint European Degree Label is to act as a quality and branding tool, showing compliance with European criteria and providing visibility and prestige to the labelled joint programmes, while the promotion actions around the label are still to be announced. The label can be awarded to joint Bachelor's, Master's, and Doctoral programmes (EQF levels 6, 7, and 8 respectively), provided they are offered by a consortium including at least two degree-awarding institutions from at least two EU member states in line with the enclosed criteria, and lead to a genuinely joint degree corresponding to a nationally recognised qualification. 

The guide structures the assessment around two dimensions. Dimension A groups nine criteria related to Programme organisation, covering the structural and quality assurance features that define a genuinely joint programme, such as the number of institutions involved, joint delivery and degree award, and joint governance arrangements. Dimension B groups seven criteria related to the European dimension of joint programmes, covering features including interdisciplinarity and research-based learning, employability, digitalisation, European values, multilingualism, inclusiveness, and environmental sustainability.  

Following a compliance assessment against both dimensions and all criteria, the label is to be awarded either by national-level quality assurance agencies or by self-accrediting higher education institutions, as follows: 

1. Consortia of HEIs which are subject to external programme-level accreditation or mixed consortia have to apply to a Quality Assurance (QA) Agency in one of the EU or EEA EFTA countries (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway). The agency must be registered in the European Quality Assurance Register for Higher Education (EQAR) and would carry out the compliance assessment and award the label. 
2. Consortia that include only self-accrediting HEIs as degree-awarding partners can choose to either apply for the above process, via an EQAR-registered QA Agency, or to entrust one of the self-accrediting and degree-awarding HEIs in the consortium to carry out the compliance assessment and award the label. 

The guide specifies that the awarding bodies must apply the compliance assessment in accordance with this operational guide, aiming for consistency, comparability, transparency, and trust in assessment outcomes. The award of the Joint European Degree Label by a QA agency is formally equivalent to the award of the label by a self-accrediting HEI. Applications can be submitted at any stage of a programme's lifecycle, i.e. either integrated in a regular quality assurance evaluation or as a standalone assessment.  

For background, the further development of the label was mandated through the Council Recommendation on a European quality assurance and recognition system in higher education, adopted on 12 May 2025 (see ACA Newsletter – Education Europe, May 2025), while its operationalisation was subsequently entrusted to the Policy Lab on the European Degree, bringing together national experts and representatives of higher education institutions, quality assurance/accreditation agencies, students, and economic and social partners (see ACA Newsletter – Education Europe, November 2025).  

How quickly institutions and agencies will make use of the process will become apparent in the coming months, as the first applications begin. To support the roll-out of the label, the European University Association (EUA) has been organising a series of related webinars on the State of play & ways forward (11 June 2026) and on Intrepreting the Operational Guide (18 June 2026).