The mission of the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA) is to drive the development of quality assurance by representing agencies internationally, supporting them nationally, and providing them with comprehensive services and networking opportunities. ENQA promotes the enhancement of quality and the development of a quality culture in higher education.

ENQA works to contribute to a European Higher Education Area in which students have access to high quality education and can achieve qualifications that are respected world-wide.

ENQA is open to the diversity of higher education systems and quality assurance approaches and adheres to the following values:

• Transparency: ENQA publishes its policies, procedures and criteria for decisions and reports.
• Independence: ENQA actively promotes the operational independence of quality assurance agencies and supports the autonomy of higher education institutions.
• Collaboration: ENQA works in a consultative manner with its members and affiliates, European partners and fellow associations.
• Integrity: ENQA operates with integrity and in a fair, equitable, impartial, objective and professional manner.

ENQA’s contribution to the Bologna Process (updated in 2009)

• 2001-2003: collaboration in establishing a common framework of reference for quality assurance and working towards the establishment of the EHEA by 2010;
• 2003-2005: drafting the ESG in co-operation with its member agencies and the other members of the E4 Group (EUA, EURASHE and ESU). The ESG were adopted in Bergen in 2005;
• Consultative member of the BFUG since 2005;
• 2005-2008: active contribution to the establishment of the European Quality Assurance Register for Higher Education (EQAR) icon external link, together with its E4 partners. Publication of the E4 Group’s icon pdf Report to the London Conference of Ministers on a European Register of Quality Assurance Agencies. EQAR, the first legal entity emerging from the Bologna Process, was founded on 4 March 2008 by the E4 Group;
• Membership of the BFUG Working Group “European Higher Education in a Global Setting”;
• Organisation, within the framework of the BFUG work programme, of a Bologna seminar on “Transnational education (TNE) and the OECD-UNESCO- Guidelines for quality provision in cross-border higher education” to be held in London on 1-2 December 2008.