Council of Europe selects YECHE and GOAF to undertake a study on the fundamental values of Higher Education and Quality Assurance

The Council of Europe (CoE) announced on 14 June that the Yehuda Elkana Center for Higher Education (CEU YECHE) and the OSUN Global Observatory on Academic Freedom (GOAF) were selected to undertake a study on the relationship between the fundamental values of Higher Education and Quality Assurance.

The central question of the study has been asked by the Council of Europe and formulated as:

“What role do the fundamental values of higher education play in the framework and practice for quality assurance?”

The fundamental values of higher education are understood as being those outlined in the 2020 Rome Communiqué of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA): institutional autonomy, academic freedom and integrity, participation of students and staff in higher education governance, and public responsibility for and of higher education.

The interconnectedness between higher education and democracy has been gaining importance in the last years, as we are nevertheless facing a crisis of, for example, academic freedom throughout the European Higher Education Area. Identifying the existing and potential linkages between the QA processes and fundamental values will help establish the state of affairs, as well as a variety of possible approaches, conceptualizations of and challenges to the enumerated values.

Yehuda Elkana Center’s extensive research on Quality Assurance, its leading role in the external evaluation of the European Quality Assurance Register for Higher Education (EQAR) ; GOAF’s commitment to the fundamental values of Higher Education and CEU researchers’ extensive experience of cooperation with the Council of Europe in the field of Higher Education; will all contribute to the study expected to be finalized by the end of 2021.

For more information on Education Department, Directorate of Democratic Participation, of the Council of Europe please click here.