A quarterly publication of AQU Catalunya
The Council of the European Union approved the Resolution on the joint European degree label and the Recommendation on a European Quality Assurance and Recognition System in Higher Education on 7 May 2025.
On 27 March 2024, the European Commission adopted a package of proposals for Europe’s higher education sector, with the aim of promoting increased cooperation between higher education institutions in the EU and working towards a European degree. The package included proposals for Council recommendations on attractive and sustainable careers in higher education, a European quality assurance and recognition system for higher education and a blueprint for a European degree. On 25 November 2024, the Council of the European Union adopted the Recommendation on attractive and sustainable careers in higher education. In its session on 7 May, the Council approved the other two initiatives. The most relevant aspects of these agreements are set out below.
The European System for Quality Assurance and Recognition in Higher Education
The Council agreement makes five main recommendations to EU Member States:
With regard to improving quality assurance systems, the Council calls on Member States to continuously improve them in order to ensure the relevance and excellence of higher education, as well as international trust and accountability. The systems must be adapted to social, technological and economic changes. At the same time, external quality assessment processes should be simplified to avoid unnecessary administrative burdens, and transparency and objectivity in accreditation decisions should be ensured, involving experts, students, and academic staff. This involves, among other things, publishing the results of the assessment. The states should take steps to measure the extent to which quality assurance procedures are leading to an improvement in the quality of educational provision. These processes should cover the whole range of the educational provision offered by higher education institutions, including micro-credentials. Finally, the Council deems it essential to encourage mutual learning among institutions and quality agencies by comparing practices and utilising European data, such as graduate tracking and the Higher Education Observatory.
The second recommendation calls on states to develop a European framework to enable European alliances of higher education institutions to undergo a joint external evaluation of their internal quality mechanisms, especially for programmes, micro-credentials and other joint educational actions. To this end, states should collaborate with the various stakeholders involved—quality agencies and university alliances—to design and test this framework. The initial rollout of the new framework should be evaluated in terms of necessity, added value, reduced administrative burden and benefits for institutions. If the results are positive, states should allow recognised quality agencies (EQARs) to apply it routinely in external quality assessment.
In order to streamline quality assurance processes for training programmes or combined processes (programmes and institutions), the Council proposes enhancing transnational cooperation and the agility of higher education systems by fostering an institutional culture of quality, promoting an institutional focus on quality assurance, strengthening the use of empirical data and supporting institutional development through peer learning and training on quality. The other major initiative in this area is to allow and encourage the use of the European Approach.
One of the EHEA’s outstanding tasks is the implementation of automatic recognition. This is one of the key issues for the Council when it comes to facilitating mobility and trust between institutions and countries.
The creation of a joint European degree label to guarantee the quality and transnational recognition of joint programmes in the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) is one of the most important objectives in the field of higher education in the European Union. The Council calls on states to authorise EQAR-registered agencies that apply the European Approach to award the label and to allow institutions with recognised external institutional evaluation to self-accredit their own joint programmes with the European label. It also proposes the creation of a public repository of joint programmes eligible for the label. The Council also envisages working with the European Commission to assess whether this label can also be applied to programmes at level 5 of the European Qualifications Framework (EQF).
One of the EHEA’s outstanding tasks is the implementation of automatic recognition. This is one of the key issues for the Council when it comes to facilitating mobility and trust between institutions and countries. It therefore calls on states to encourage and support the evaluation of automatic recognition through the internal and external quality assurance processes. It also asks them to develop and review clear guidance for higher education institutions on how to distinguish between the automatic recognition of a qualification for access and higher education institutions’ right to make decisions on admission to a specific programme, which should use admission criteria based on learning outcomes. Member States should work with national recognition bodies to monitor recognition decisions and enhance data collection and use in all areas. They should also support higher education institutions in issuing all degrees and micro-credentials in digital formats compatible with European standards; promote training and digitalisation (including artificial intelligence) for staff at ENIC-NARIC centres and higher education institutions; and encourage cooperation between those responsible for recognition and quality assurance, both at national and European level (e.g. between ENIC-NARIC and ENQA).
The joint European degree label
The Council’s resolution sets out the member states’ vision for a joint European degree label and proposes a roadmap towards a possible joint European degree, with three phases to be carried out by 2029. The label would be granted to joint programmes delivered via transnational cooperation between universities from different countries, including at least two EU member states.
The resolution sets out the following three phases:
Based on the results of the Commission’s evaluation and the feasibility study the Council may decide on the long-term implementation of the joint European degree label and invite the Commission to propose specific next steps towards the introduction of a joint European degree. It is the Council of the European Union’s opinion that this new degree could open up new avenues for higher education in the EU and serve as a means of fostering the personal and professional development and active citizenship of future generations.