Analysing Implementation of the European Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance at Institutional Level:Outcomes of the IBAR Project

The IBAR project studied barriers higher education institutions experienced to implementing the ESG part 1. Our paper reports on the major findings of this project. After sketching our conceptual approach, we conclude that the ESG Part 1 seem to be functioning as a codification of many policies and practices of quality assurance in higher education institutions in the seven countries studied, thus establishing common criteria and methodologies to some extent. They may need more time (together with further adaptation of national policies in many countries) to act as modification of some others closer to the ‘inner life’ of academe, esp. learning-outcome based curricula and assessment; recognition of teaching in academic careers; serious consideration of stakeholders in quality assurance and curriculum revie

Improving diversity, quality and efficiency in Dutch higher education using performance agreements

More and more governments have started to introduce elements of performance in the funding mechanisms for their higher education institutions. For instance, through Performance Agreements (PAs), which are contracts signed between funding authorities and individual universities or colleges. The key characteristics of the PAs in place in a number of OECD countries are summarized before turning to the Netherlands, where an experiment with PAs was recently (2016) concluded. The question is whether this experiment actually improved performance in the higher education system, where ‘performance’ is understood in terms of students’ study success, education quality and diversity in the provision of education and research. What has been achieved on these areas? And what can be learned from the Dutch performance agreements experiment in general

Transparency in higher education:The emergence of a new perspective on higher education governance

Reliable information and transparency on the benefits that higher education institutions offer their students, funders and communities is key for their legitimacy, their funding and their competitiveness. Worldwide, relationships between governmental authorities and higher education institutions are changing, particularly because of the increased demands for transparency about outcomes and impacts of higher education. In our contribution, we discuss three higher education ‘transparency tools’: accreditation, rankings and—briefly—performance contracts. We present some recent developments regarding these tools in the broader context of governance and policy making and analyse how they aim to address the growing need for more transparency. The transparency tools are part of a recently emerging governance paradigm in higher education, networked governance; a paradigm that explicitly acknowledges the diverse information needs of a wide variety of higher education stakeholder groups