Assessing quality of partnerships amongst Higher Education Institutions Erasmus Project

Project Title

Assessing quality of partnerships amongst Higher Education Institutions

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: International cooperation, international relations, development cooperation; Quality Improvement Institutions and/or methods (incl. school development); Quality Assurance

Project Summary

Since the beginning of the Erasmus programme in 1987, the number of bilateral agreements allowing for the exchange of students between higher education institutions has increased massively. In recent years however, the focus in setting up such agreements has shifted more and more from quantity to quality, from “partners” to “partnerships”. The question now is: how can we objectively monitor the quality of our partnerships?

In Flanders this question led to the development of an Online Quality Assessment Tool for International Cooperation (eQuATIC). This tool measures and exposes the strengths and weaknesses in international cooperation and partnerships. The main principle of eQuATIC is the use of quantified indicators, derived from data that were already available and were taken from various data sources. By converting quantitative and descriptive data into figures, cooperation with partners at different levels can easily be analysed and improved.

The project on Assessing quality of partnerships amongst Higher Education Institutions created several Intellectual Outputs to support HEIs in the adoption of the eQuATIC tool.

First of all, a research was carried out on how institutions use data for internationalisation in higher education and how they deal with international partnerships. The research made clear that:
• Most institutions do not have a policy for setting up, adapting or ending international partnerships.
• Inactive international partnerships are rarely actively ended; mostly the partnership agreements are allowed to stay in the files indefinitely or they expire without further notice.
• Although institutions typically gather many data on mobility these data are mostly not used in a systematic manner to inform institutions’ policies and decision-making on international partnerships.
• Whilst in general institutions perceive the quality of international partnerships as a priority for internationalisation, most institutions do not pursue a quality assurance policy on the formation, monitoring and withdrawal from inter-institutional agreements.
Building on these research findings guidelines on improving mobility-enabling university partnerships were created, also including instructions on how the eQuATIC tool could be used by institutions. The guidelines are a first step for institutions interested in using the eQuATIC tool but could also be used for shaping partnership policies at HEIs.

The wide dissemination campaign that was carried out during the project duration certainly raised awareness and interest by many Higher Education Institutions. Besides the guidelines, those institutions could use the peer assessment toolbox, that was created in the context of the project. It functions as a support platform to start using the eQuATIC tool. With the information on the peer assessment toolbox, institutions can prepare their data uploads enabling them to start using the tool inside their own organisation. In total 68 institutions have an account to test out eQuATIC.

Upon successful upload of their own data, these institutions can consult the eQuATIC reports to assess their own partnerships. Furthermore, in the context of the project a self-assessment report has been created where institutions can consult their own strengths and weaknesses as an international partner.

A final output is a training toolkit. Two pilot trainings took place in the course of the project and participants highly valued the content and approach of such trainings, rating the overall satisfaction with 4,9/5. Most participants actively started using the tool after taking part in the training.

Besides the upscaling of the eQuATIC tool itself that was clearly successful, the project partners also promoted the principles of data-informed policy making and quality assurance for international partnerships.

The policy recommendations that were produced in this regard were shared with policymakers at the level of the European Commission, national authorities and HEIs.

Because of the synergies with the Erasmus Without Paper project, a more long-term impact is envisaged. In this context, it is important to stress the explicit support from the European Commission for bottom-up initiatives like eQuATIC. A representative from the European Commission took part in the final dissemination event and the project was thoroughly discussed during a meeting in preparation for the event. Moreover, in the context of the Erasmus Without Paper project, the European University Foundation and Ghent University are preparing a first blueprint on how the eQuATIC principles on data-informed policymaking could become part of the EWP infrastructure in the future.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 170479 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSITEIT GENT & Country: BE

Project Partners

• EUROPEAN CONSORTIUM FOR ACCREDITATION IN HIGHER EDUCATION
• EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION-CAMPUS EUROPAE
• UNIWERSYTET WARSZAWSKI