EASPA launches: European Physical Society a founder
The ‘European Alliance for Subject-Specific and Professional Accreditation and Quality Assurance’ [EASPA] was founded during a meeting at the ASIIN offices in Düsseldorf, Germany, on 29 November this year. EASPA is a pan-European platform for quality assurance in higher education, uniting eight member professional associations in Europe, which act as European field-specific networks.
The common goal of the alliance is to maintain and further develop Europe-wide disciplinary learning outcomes, competence profiles and qualification frameworks; as well as corresponding quality assurance tools; thereby making an important contribution towards the development and implementation of academic and professional mobility within the European Higher Education Area.
I. Wasser, the Managing Director of ASIIN, was chosen to be the first EASPA president, with E. Varella, of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, as vice-president. Together with three representatives from the European Association for Public Administration Accreditation, the European Quality Assurance Network for Informatics Education and the European Physical Society, they will form the first five Executive Board members.
The first Executive Board Meeting and General Assembly is expected to take place, as a satellite to the 2012 Techno TN Forum, on 4-5 May next year in Antwerp, Belgium.
Furthermore, the ‘Düsseldorf Declaration of EASPA’ was discussed and finalised as a joint statement to be submitted by EASPA to the 47 European Ministers responsible for Higher Education at the 2012 Bologna Ministerial Conference, which is being held on 26-27 April 2012 in Bucharest, Romania.
This new initiative was presented on 2 December at the recent joint seminar by ENQA1 and INQAAHE2, entitled ‘Internationalisation and Quality Assurance: Connecting European and Global Experiences’, which was held at the Metropole Hotel, Brussels, between 30 November and 2 December this year.
During the last three years, the European Physical Society has been actively involved in the formation and aims of EASPA, through means of the Bologna Process Project, which was initiated and coordinated by the former president, F. Wagner.
This project resulted in the publication of three documents by the European Physical Society: ‘A European Specification for Physics Bachelor Studies’, ‘A European Specification for Physics Master Studies’ and ‘A European Specification for Physics Doctoral Programmes’.
A website for EASPA is planned to be launched in 2012.
- The European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education. [↩]
- The International Network for Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher Education. [↩]
