The European Commission has presented its first triennial report on progress in the area of quality assurance. The report is a response to the 2006 recommendation of the European Parliament and the Council on further cooperation in quality assurance (QA) in higher education (see ACA Newsletter – Education Europe, February 2006). It analyses the situation at national, European and international levels, suggesting areas for further improvement.  

An important step forward has been the creation of a growing number of quality assurance agencies and networks, although they are still quite heterogeneous in terms of size, scope and functions. A major new body in the European QA infrastructure is the European Quality Assurance Register (EQAR, see ACA Newsletter – Education Europe, June 2009) remains the design of adequate and harmonised assessment procedures for measuring learning outcomes.