Between 19 and 21 May, ENQA's assessment panel visited the Swedish Higher Education Authority (UKÄ) to evaluate how well the agency, in its capacity as a quality assurance organisation, meets the requirements of the ESG - the European Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area. The site visit also aims to support UKÄ's continued development work and will provide an important basis for decisions on renewed membership of ENQA and continued registration on EQAR later this autumn.

As a member of the European quality assurance organisation ENQA, UKÄ must undergo an external review every five years in order to renew its membership. The purpose of the review is to assess how well UKÄ fulfils the European Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area (ESG).

The review covers all quality assurance activities that fall within the scope of the ESG, with a focus on education, teaching and learning. Quality assurance of research is not included, as it is currently not covered by the ESG. The review team examines, among other things, how UKÄ´s external quality assurance is designed, how HEIs, students and other stakeholders are involved, and how the actual implementation takes place. ENQA's assessment panel also reviews UKÄ´s organisational conditions, including governance and internal quality assurance, resource allocation and the agency´s independence.

As a basis for the review, ENQA's assessors have access to UKÄ´s self-assessment report, which was submitted to ENQA earlier this spring, supplementary documentation requested by the assessors, and to interviews with a large number of people within and outside UKÄ during the site visit.

‘We have really been looking forward to the site visit and to meeting ENQA's assessment panel,’ says Ulf Hedbjörk, who coordinates the ENQA review at UKÄ. ‘After intensive work on the self-assessment, it was exciting to discover, together with invited representatives of higher education institutions and other stakeholders, how the assessors perceived UKÄ and our endeavour to develop towards increased accuracy, flexibility and resource efficiency for the benefit of the sector!’

What has happened since 2020?
Since the previous ENQA review in 2020, UKÄ has continued to work on the areas where improvements were recommended. The results of this work are presented in the current self-assessment report, where UKÄ describes how several standards and work processes have been developed further and enhanced. The self-assessment process has provided UKÄ with an opportunity for self-reflection and organisational development and has been an important tool for addressing the challenges in specific ESG standards identified by the previous review

Report from ENQA after the summer
It remains to be seen what impact or development areas were identified during the site visit. ENQA's assessment panel will present its report by the end of summer, and based on this, UKÄ will apply for renewed membership of ENQA and continued registration on EQAR.

Find out more about UKÄ's membership of ENQA on its website and download related reports:

ENQA membership