One of ECA’s proposed solutions to facilitate joint programmes is the establishment of a coordination point. This coordination point should be able to assist institutions and QA & accreditation agencies regarding external QA procedures of joint programmes. Additionally the coordination point could provide relevant information on internal & external QA of joint programmes and the recognition of their degrees.

In order to customise this coordination point as much as possible to the needs of the joint programmes and the quality assurance agencies, ECA investigated the current state of affairs among coordinators of joint programmes and QA & accreditation agencies.

The now published report intends to establish what kind of information and/or assistance on quality assurance, accreditation and recognition of degrees a coordination point regarding joint programmes should provide.

The results of ECA’s study indicate a strong demand amongst both the joint programmes and the QA agencies for a more centralised, international approach and underpin the foundation of a coordination point regarding joint programmes. A large proportion of the programme coordinators find external QA of joint programmes challenging, and struggle to collect all the information required. The same goes for degree issues. Worrisome is the fact that almost all information and activities are national, which essentially contradicts the international nature of these joint programmes.

This report is part of ECA’s JOQAR project: “Joint programmes: Quality Assurance and Recognition of degrees awarded”. The project was made possible with the support of the European Commission’s Erasmus Mundus programme.