This volume presents a rich account of the development of accreditation and evaluation in 20 European countries. It shows how accreditation is becoming a main mechanism in the steering of higher education across Europe. The book is unique in its analysis of forces driving towards the spread of different models of accreditation in the emerging European Higher Education area.

European higher education institutions are facing in these last years a number of relevant political and social changes that have asked for more transparency, accountability, comparability and legitimacy of degrees. In light of these new challenges, the great majority of universities have responded by implementing quality assurance processes, either through evaluation or through accreditation. This book collects the evaluation and accreditation experiences gathered by higher education institutions in Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, the United Kingdom and Sweden. It provides a synthetic picture of the present state of quality assurance practices in Europe and offers a few lessons for a future European dimension of quality assurance.

By bringing together leading experts on quality assurance in higher education from seven countries (from Europe, the USA and South Africa), this volume intends to go several steps further than most publications on the same subject. Containing comprehensive discussion of the most relevant trends in quality assurance regulation, translation and transformation, researchers and policy makers will find an engaged, academic reflection on how quality assurance is embedded in higher education and in a dynamic way to assess its impacts and potential improvements.

This study addresses debates on academic standards and quality assurance from the perspectives of institutional leaders, national quality bodies and higher education researchers. It includes the results of studies of the impact of external quality assurance upon management and decision making.