The European Ministers wrote in their London Communiqué (18 May 2007): “We acknowledge the progress made with regard to mutual recognition of accreditation and quality assurance decisions, and encourage continued international cooperation amongst quality assurance agencies.” and “[…] we will work to implement fully the agreed recognition tools and procedures and consider ways of further incentivising mobility for both staff and students. This includes encouraging a significant increase in the number of joint programmes and the creation of flexible curricula […].”

There are currently 103 Erasmus Mundus Master’s programmes. This is however only a limited (but highly visible) portion of the joint programmes organised in Europe. All these programmes are confronted with national quality assurance and/or accreditation procedures. One programme therefore has to undergo several different, national procedures. These procedures then lead to decisions that only have an impact in one national higher education system. This is burdensome for the institutions, hampers the development of multilateral cooperations in higher education and hinders the creation of the European Higher Education Area. Furthermore, the recognition of a joint programme in one country doesn’t necessarily entail recognition in the other countries concerned. This then also leads to recognition problems regarding the qualification(s) awarded by the joint programme.

Recognition authorities (ENIC/NARICs) have expressed their willingness to automatically recognise qualifications awarded by accredited programmes and/or institutions (Joint Declaration regarding the automatic recognition of qualifications ). One of their preconditions however is transparent information. In the case of joint programmes they require information on the quality assessment and the programme’s learning outcomes. ECA has developed Qrossroads. The information in Qrossroads is provided by the accreditation organisations. Currently, Qrossroads doesn’t provide information regarding learning outcomes. This means that ENIC/NARICs are still not fully provided with the information they need and request.