European Quality Assurance (QA) in Higher Education has been at the core of the project. Learning outcomes (LO) have been described as a fundamental building block of the Bologna process reforms, and LO now feature in the quality assessment and accreditation procedures for HE programmes in several countries. Nonetheless, the degree of implementation and embedding of LO varies widely among and within countries.Building on evidence from a selection of HE programmes, the MEHR project has intended to investigate the formalisation and assessment of LO on human rights (HR). The aim was to enable quality assurance agencies (QAAs) to undertake a self-assessment of their performance regarding the assessment of LO on HR in their accreditation practices, and to obtain a more faithful estimation of their activities in relation to LO assessment, in a comparative European perspective. The project consortium gathered three QAAs and three HEIs from three European countries (Sweden, Portugal, Croatia) of different size, educational traditions and structures of higher education systems as well as different levels of development on LO assessment tools and procedures, and one international student organisation located in Belgium (ESU, former ESIB). This variety allowed gaining new knowledge from comparative analysis. The core of the partnership consisted of a selection of accreditation and quality assurance agencies, with the Swedish Higher Education Authority (Universitetskanslersämbetet, UKÄ) acting as project coordinator. The partnership joins different kinds of institutions and stakeholders with a common feature: all of them have former experiences in the topic – LO assessment – and have been involved in the development of theoretical research or/and implementation tools, as users or target groups. Previous projects focused on, and were targeted to, higher education institutions exclusively. In contrast, the MEHR project adds value and innovation by targeting both QAAs, and Higher Education Institutions (HEIs); particularly through the insight the project has given into how these employ LO in their everyday practices.Through its focus on LO assessment on HR within specific areas of education leading to a profession (medicine, health sciences, social services, teacher education, geography and law) the project is relevant both from a broader employability perspective strengthening recognition and stimulating mobility, and from the perspective of singular HEIs who might use the project results to benchmark and further develop their educational activities on HR.From 2016 to 2019, the MEHR partnership carried out country specific surveys related to LO assessment of human rights in the above higher educational areas, resulting in three country reports. Each report was produced as a joint venture involving a quality assurance agency, a higher education institution, and the European Students’ Union. Questionnaires were sent to all higher education institutions in a country with the right to award degrees for the selected programmes. In addition, a number of programmes were self-selected as examples of good practice and focus interviews were carried out. In relation to the publication of each report, a workshop and a conference were held, where the results were disseminated and discussed with representatives of higher education institutions, students, and other stakeholders. Finally, the project results, together with a final comparative report and a selection of student vox pop videos, were presented at a dissemination conference in Brussels.The MEHR project has strengthened the skills of the participating organisations in the field of LO assessment on HR. Thus, for the research and teaching institutions, the project has contributed to an advance in the state of the art in the field of LO; for the QAAs the insights gained and made available for member agencies and others represent a significant step forward in the development of their mission. The project has also promoted the dialogue between national agencies and HEIs, enabling the exchange of best practices across cultural contexts, as well as developing suitable methods for comparing practices of LO assessment across Europe, building a better understanding of how QAAs and HEIs can improve LO assessment methodologies. The project results have also reached a wider audience through presentations at external conferences and events. Through mutual learning between different educational programmes, between HEIs, QAAs and student organisations, and between the different countries in the consortium, the MEHR project has thus had the benefit of spreading knowledge and strengthening HR across Europe.

<< Objectives >>The objective is to provide practitioners and students with a set of practices, approaches, and tools to address the assessment needs of STEM education in remote, considering gender issues. The goals are to:- Detect the appropriate approaches and practices for assessment of STEM students in remote, considering gender equity.- Develop benchmarks and guidelines, according to the EQAAs (External Quality Assurance Agency) requirements, to implement and successfully evaluated the learning process<< Implementation >>The main activities will be:- Mapping and clustering of main established remote assessment systems in STEM in Europe.- Gap Analysis to provide an in-depth and grounded understanding of the current needs in the assessment systems and evaluation of remote learning in STEM, considering gender issues. - Definition of benchmark and guidelines to implement and evaluate remote learning assessment. - Design the roadmap and recommendations for improving learning experience in remote learning.<< Results >>The main results of the project will be: - A thorough and comprehensive review of current assessment and remote learning practices in STEM.- A benchmark to provide an understanding of normative actions that need to be implemented to properly assess and evaluate.- User-friendly guidelines, supported by agencies, to improve the students’ learning experience, considering gender issues.- A roadmap and sustainability plan to implement the normative actions, methods, and recommendations.

Recent European reports on QA show that HEIs have made progress in establishing internal quality assurance (IQA) systems based on ENQA’s European Standards and Guidelines (ESG) for QA in the EHEA, but they need practical advice on the interpretation of the ESG 2015 and support in further development of IQA. The progress in the implementation of IQA systems varies greatly among HEIs in the four countries participating in the project and many of them are yet to have fully-fledged systems in place. The QA Agencies in the four countries are committed to enhancing their methodologies for the assessment of IQA systems as part of their external evaluations based on the exchange of good practice and strengthening their cooperation with a view to exchanging experts. The ENQA-coordinated external review of the Polish Accreditation Agency (PKA) in 2014 recommended that the Agency should produce a Guide to IQA/ Code of Good Practice in IQA for HEIs. Against this background, the project ‘Enhancing Internal Quality Assurance Systems’ (EIQAS) had two objectives: 1) to increase the capacity of higher education institutions in the participating countries to develop internal quality assurance by enhancing their awareness and understanding of Part 1 of the ENQA European Standards and Guidelines and identifying, developing and disseminating good innovative practice in internal quality assurance; and 2) to increase the capacity of the participating QA agencies in external quality assurance by comparing their methodologies for the assessment of internal quality assurance and exchanging and developing good practice in IQA assessment. EIQAS brought together four QA Agencies, PKA (Poland), NEAA (Bulgaria), A3ES (Portugal) and SQAA (Slovenia), the Polish and Portuguese Rectors’ Conferences (KRASP and CRUP) and 3 HEIs from Slovenia and Portugal (University from Minho, Nova Gorica and Ljubljana). The main activities of the project included: - a comparative analysis of the QA Agencies’ methodologies for the assessment of IQA systems to identify good and transferrable practice; - a survey on IQA and the ESG to identify the main problems faced by HEIs in IQA and in the interpretation of Part 1 of the ESG; - three Training Events (C1, C2, C3): a seminar on IQA and the ESG for the QA Agencies and HEIs; training for the QA Agencies’ experts involved in external evaluations; and special training for students-experts involved in the QA Agencies’ external evaluations; - the production of Training Event 1 publications on IQA and Part 1 of the ESG; - dissemination activities at institutional, national and European levels, including multiplier events designed not only to promote the project’s outputs but also to share the expertise gained by project participants. The project produced the following main outputs: - a reference framework for comparative analysis of the QA Agencies’ methodologies for assessing IQA systems, and a comparative report on their methodologies identifying good transferrable practice; - country reports and a cross-country report on HEIs’ main problems in the implementation of IQA systems and the interpretation of Part 1 of the ESG; - a Guide to IQA for HEIs, including general guidelines, practical advice on each Part 1 ESG and good practice examples from each of the four countries under each ESG; - a Students Guide to ESG focusing on issues under each Part 1 ESG which are specifically relevant to students; and- a report proposing a framework for further training of QA Agency experts and arrangements for the exchange of experts among the Agencies. The project had/ have short- or medium-term impact on the participating QA Agencies in terms of their IQA assessment methodologies improved through the integration of good practice tested in the other countries, greater professionalism of the Agencies’ experts and their enhanced awareness of European approaches to the assessment of IQA, and greater internationalisation of the Agencies through future exchange of experts. While establishing fully-fledged IQA systems at HEIs is a long and challenging process, the project’s main training events, the two Guides were produced and multiplier events were expected to contribute in the medium term to improving the existing systems in terms of the increased awareness of IQA among HEI staff and students, the overall design of systems and the integration of all elements of Part 1 of the ESG in the four participating countries. As the outputs of EIQAS were distributed among European QA and HE organisations and QA Agencies, the project is likely to have impact at European level in terms of wider promotion and better understanding of Part 1 of the ESG and related good practice, mutual understanding of approaches to IQA and to the assessment of IQA as part of external quality assurance processes.

Internal Quality Management System in Higher Education is criticised as being too-process oriented, box-ticking and insufficiently focused on consequential and generalisable outcomes because of the high quantity of indicators involved, which complicates the indicators’ accurate and timely analysis, and consequently their adequate use for decision-making at different levels (strategic, tactical or operational). In 2015, the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area (ESG) were revised (first version in 2005) and approved. Although not being mandatory or prescriptive, the set of standards and guidelines in Part 1 of the ESG contribute to ensure that the Internal Quality Management Systems (QMS) of HEIs in the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) adhere to the same set of principles and that the processes and procedures implemented are modelled to fit the purposes and requirements of their contexts. In 2018, the ISO (International Organisation for Standardisation) published in 2018 a new standard entitled “Educational Organisation Management Systems”, providing criteria for the alignment of the HEIs’ internal QM systems to the world-known ISO 9001 standard.In this context, the SMART-QUAL project addresses some existing important needs: · Lack of a comprehensive framework of harmonised quality indicators and benchmarks.· Lack of internal QM systems’ evaluation process by quality assurance agencies, based on common criteria and indicators, which translates in efforts of HEIs to implement internal QM systems not being officially recognised.- The main objective of the SMART-QUAL is to support HEIs in the implementation of effective internal QM system by designing a set of quality indicators to be implemented and improve in the short and long term the internal QM systems (make them more efficient and effective) and the alignment of these indicators in a structured catalogue according to the three main levels of decision making (strategic, tactical and operational).- The consortium: a balanced international partnership formed by UMinho University (Portugal) Conexx-Europe (Belgium), Aveiro University (Portugal), A3ES Agency for Assessment and Accreditation of Higher Education (Portugal), Politecnico di Torino (Italy), Universitat Internacional de Catalunya (Spain), AQU The Catalan University Quality Assurance Agency (Spain), Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium) and Studiju Kokybes Vertinimo Centras (Lithuania), will work together to impact all over Europe and ensure the project’s long term sustainability and broad dissemination.- The target groups the projects aims to impact includes management boards, administrative staff, professors, researchers of HEIs and quality agencies. Furthermore, the project targets other stakeholders involved in the quality management systems and final beneficiary groups as the students benefiting from a more efficient QM system that will impact their education and as the societies, this HEIs interact with.- SMART-QUAL will apply stakeholder surveys, desk research and comparative analysis incompetence and training analysis, and participatory product development and observation in the development of the results and provided online tools.- The structure of the main outcomes of the project will be:IO1: Creation of a new and replicable Quality Indicators Scoreboard (QIS) and a Smart-Qual Wikicontaining all the findings of the IO1.IO1-A1: State-of-the-art of the quality management system of higher education institutions.IO1-A2: Literature review on quality indicators and quality management systemsIO1-A3 Harmonisation of the indicators and creation of the Quality Indicators ScoreboardIO1-A4 Creation of the SMART-QUAL WikiIO2: Guidelines to support the QIS practical implementation in the HEIsIO2-A1 Contacting relevant stakeholdersIO2-A2 Designing the structure of the guidelinesIO2-A3 Content productionIO2-A4 Testing of the new system and peer reviewIO2-A5 Graphic design of the guide- One LTTA is foreseen to be implemented in order to support universities in the practical implementation of the new QIS. During this event, members of the project and staff members working in the field of Quality in HEIs or researching this topic will acquire more knowledge on the project's subject and will work together on the development of the structure and content of the Guide on the practical implementation of the QIS.- 1 Multiplier Events will take place with the aim of gathering the local, national and European and international stakeholders and disseminate the project's results at different levels, widen its impact by fostering the implementation of the new IQS and the use of the SMART-QUAL wiki, as well as building strong networks to further develop the project’s improvements in the Quality Assurance systems and exploit SMART-QUAL’s results.