European Universities initiative and European University alliances Erasmus+ Programme

The Cyprus Agency for Quality Assurance and Accreditation in Higher Education (CYQAA) would like to inform all interested parties, the following:

Having examined the Council of the European Union’s document, under the title “Council conclusions on the European Universities initiative – Bridging higher education, research, innovation and society: Paving the way for a new dimension in European higher education (2021/C 221/03)”^[1] CYQAA fully adopts the Council’s conclusions regarding “[…] the further development of the European university alliances as a flagship example for modern and inclusive higher education institutions of the future in Europe” and “that the alliances formed under the European Universities initiative constitute one important way of exploring deeper, larger-scale systemic cooperation, which can prove helpful for detecting and overcoming the obstacles to closer transnational cooperation by higher education institutions in the future.”

The European Council calls upon Member States “with full respect for Member States’ competences and with regard to the principle of subsidiarity, institutional autonomy, academic freedom and in accordance with national and regional circumstances” to,

[35] Work together at international, national and regional level, as well as between governments and institutions, to identify and remove, where necessary, the obstacles towards more compatible higher education systems and closer strategic alliances of higher education institutions, building on the extensive work that has already been developed through the EEA, the EHEA and the ERA,

and

[37] Identify and remove, where necessary, obstacles to a European approach for Quality Assurance of Joint Programmes, by reinforcing institutional linkages and procedures between evaluation, accreditation, and quality assurance agencies registered on EQAR, to find modalities of automatic mutual recognition, as well as by facilitating the implementation of quality assurance procedures and encouraging joint evaluation and accreditation of study programmes.

Within this framework the CYQAA Council has decided that for Programmes of study within the European Universities initiative the Agency will follow the same policy as other agencies in European countries for the programmes which will be selected by the European Commission. That is, the programme will be evaluated by only one agency which will be registered in EQAR, fully adopting, thus, the European Approach for Quality Assurance of Joint Programmes^[2] which was approved by the European Higher Education Area (EHEA).

CYQAA should be officially informed for the selection and the operation of such joint programmes. The accredited European Initiative Programmes will be published on a special webpage on the Agency’s website and they will be announced by the Ministry of Education, Sports and Youth in the Official Gazette of the Government.

Participating Cyprus universities should send the official decision of the competent European body (European Education and Culture Executive Agency) to CYQAA.

 

^[1] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:52021XG0610(02)&from=EN

^[2] https://www.eqar.eu/assets/uploads/2018/04/02_European_Approach_QA_of_Joint_Programmes_v1_0.pdf