Mutual Recognition: An approach to create quality assurance and international transparency for quality assurance agencies

The paper presents the experiences gained in the pilot project on mutual recognition conducted by the quality assurance agencies in the Nordic countries and the future perspective for international quality assurance of national quality assurance agencies.

The background of the project was the need to simultaneously advance, on the one hand, internationalisation of quality assurance of higher education, and on the other hand, allow for the differences in the national approaches to quality assurance as well as the to the regulation and funding of higher education. Mutual Recognition was perceived as a way of creating international transparency while respecting the differences of the national approaches to quality assurance.

The Danish Evaluation Institute and the Finish Higher Education Evaluation Council volunteered to be test cases in the project. The paper will focus on two issues. Firstly, strength and weaknesses of the method employed and of the use of the ENQA-membership provision as a basis for the evaluative procedure. Secondly, the pros and cons of using Mutual Recognition as international evaluative procedure compared with other approaches.