Creating quality assurance and international transparency for quality assurance agencies: the case of mutual recognition

The paper presents the experiences gained in the pilot project on mutual recognition conducted by the quality assurance agencies in the Nordic countries and the future perspective for international quality assurance of national quality assurance agencies. The background of the project was the need, on the one hand, to advance internationalisation of quality assurance of higher education, and on the other hand, allow for the differences in the national approaches to quality assurance. The paper will focus on two issues: first, the strength and weaknesses of the method employed and of the use of the ENQA‐membership provision as a basis for the evaluative procedure; and second, the pros and cons of using mutual recognition as international evaluative procedure compared with other approaches.