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Accreditation and Quality Assurance of Engineering Education
Programs in the European Higher Education Area

N. Ruiz Reyes, P. Vera Candeas, F. Cañadas, P. Reche and S. García Galán
University of Jaén, Department of Telecommunication Engineering,
Polytechnic School, Linares, Jaén, SPAIN

Abstract - One of the issues increasingly being raised in international forums for engineering education quality
assurance is that of accreditation. This paper will notice that professional services are still subjected to specific
regulations in some countries, either by the government itself, or by private self-regulating organizations, that obstruct
the professional activities of foreign professionals. By virtue of globalization and free-trade agreements, these
obstructions must cease to exist when they are mere barriers and not effective methods to ensure service quality and
consumer protection. Confronted with these problems, quality assurance of education, by accreditation systems, and the
development of adequate professional competencies seems a reasonable solution to create a European Higher Education
Area (EHEA) and to promote the mobility of their citizens. Universities must play a relevant role in this process.
Quality assurance approaches will help institutional leadership improve organizational effectiveness, student learning
and mobility to ensure the proficiency needed to compete in the current global environment. A rigorous, well-designed
quality assessment process can make this happen. The instrument chosen for quality assurance of education programs in
the European Higher Education Area has been accreditation, as in other geographical areas or countries (i.e USA). This
paper analyses the European process to reach the accreditation of Engineering Education Programs, the involved agents
(like the ENQA – European Network for Quality Assurance, and the ECA – European Consortium for Accreditation),
along with the role of the quality national agencies, as ANECA (Spanish National Agency for Accreditation.) in the
Spanish case.

Index Terms: accreditation, European higher education area, quality assurance, engineering education programs,
professional qualifications

I. INTRODUCTION

The emergence of the Bologna Process and the increasing autonomy of higher education
institutions stimulated the establishment of national quality assurance and accreditation systems in
Europe. Comparability of the quality of study programmes is a prerequisite for the implementation
of the common European Higher Education Area and for the mobility of students. The need for
close cooperation of quality assurance agencies and acceptance of national quality assurance
systems has been emphasised by the ministers responsible for higher education in Europe since
2001. Against this background, 15 accreditation organizations from 10 European countries (Austria,
Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, Spain, France, Eire, Netherlands, Norway, Poland) decided to set
up the European Consortium for Accreditation in Higher Education (ECA). In November 2003
ECA was formally established in Córdoba. The goal of the consortium is to achieve mutual
recognition of accreditation decisions among member countries [1]. The ECA is an initiative of
accreditation organizations that are committed to contributing to the aims of Bologna.
Many stakeholders can benefit from mutual recognition agreements:
• Students benefit because they profit from facilitated mobility.
• Higher education institutions benefit because their accreditation status gains international
significance.
• Recognition authorities benefit because of the reduced amount of recognition bureaucracy.
• Labour markets, politicians and society benefit because of increased transparency.
• Accreditation / quality assurance agencies benefit because they gain international credibility.

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There is obviously a growing interest in Europe for accreditation of Engineering Education
Programs and an increasing awareness of the importance of this for the mobility of engineers and to
guarantee the quality of European Engineering Education. Although accreditation has a long history
in Europe (especially in France and United Kingdom), accreditation has been recently introduced in
other countries, such as Portugal and some of the East and Central European countries. Some
promising initiatives have been taken in last years. In such sense, the European Standing
Observatory for the Engineering Profession and Education has been created by the British
Engineering Council, the German ASIIN, the French Commission des Titres (CTI), the Italian
Collegio dei Presidi delle Facoltà di Ingegnieria, the Portuguese Ordem dos Engenheiros and the
European thematic network “Enhancing European Engineering Education” (E4).
This paper analyses accreditation and quality assurance issues for the successful implementation
of the Bologna Process, as well as the main involved agents, like the European Network for Quality
Assurance (ENQA) [2] and the European Consortium for Accreditation (ECA) [3][4], created in
November 2003 with the aim to achieve mutual recognition of accreditation decisions among
member countries. Special attention is paid on accreditation of Engineering Education Programs,
which is of vital importance to ensure that professional qualifications are recognised on a mutual
basis between all member states of the European Union, and thus for all associations and institutes
involved.

II. BACKGROUND OF THE BOLOGNA PROCESS

The Bologna process was initiated by the Sorbonne Declaration of May 25th 1998 [5], building on
the results of the Lisbon Convention of 1997 on the recognition of higher education qualification in
Europe. Signed by the ministers of four EU countries, the Sorbonne Declaration introduced a new
dimension to the European process: the concept of an “open European area for higher learning”.
Despite open borders in terms of employment, labour force mobility among EU (European Union)
countries remained low, which reduced European competitiveness internationally. In the Sorbonne
Declaration, the signatory countries resolved to enhance the continent’s international appeal and
competitiveness.
The Bologna Declaration [6], signed by the ministers of education of 29 European countries on
June 19th, 1999, is the cornerstone of the process. It is the first joint document in which the
signatories pledged their commitment to and laid the foundations for a major overhaul of European
Higher Education. The primary aim set in the Declaration was to create an European area of higher
education by pursuing two subsidiary goals: 1) promotion of the mobility of academic staff,
researchers, and students within the European area; 2) promotion of European higher education as a
single and coherent system in order to increase Europe’s competitiveness and its share in the global
higher education market. The basic aims of the Bologna Declaration may be summarized in three
key words: mobility, employability, and competitiveness.
“Trends in Learning Structures in Higher Education” was prepared for the Salamanca and Prague
Conferences of March 2001 and May 2002, respectively. This report surveyed the other signatory
countries of the Bologna Declaration, and provided a review of structures and trends in the
countries not covered in 1999. Among others, the report’s findings were:
• The competitiveness issue also gained profile and various plans aimed at attracting non-
European students had been forged.
• In terms of quality assurance, progress was also visible, but still the problem of the unclear
relationship between quality assurance and accreditation needed to be solved.
In the Salamanca Convention [7] the compatibility, defined as a common but flexible qualification
framework, was a further aim set by the Convention. This is to be achieved by the articulation of
programs and degrees in two main cycles and by the use of ECTS (European Credit Transfer
System) for both credit transfer and accumulation. Prerequisites in this respect are quality assurance

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mechanisms, certification, and good accreditation procedures. A desired outcome of quality
assurance would be achieving academic competitiveness internationally.
The aim of the Prague Summit [8] on May 2002 was to review at the ministerial level the progress
made and to identify future directions and actions necessary to achieve the goals set in 1999, such
as the issues of quality assurance systems and accreditation.
Ministers committed themselves to supporting further development of quality assurance at
institutional, national and European level in Berlin (September 18th-19th, 2003) [9]. They stressed
the need to develop mutually shared criteria and methodologies on quality assurance. They also
stressed that, consistent with the principle of institutional autonomy, the primary responsibility for
quality assurance in higher education lies with each institution itself and this provides the basis for
real accountability of the academic system within the national quality framework.
The European Commission of Education and Culture help to organize a coherent inventory
exercise in close conjunction with the Bologna Secretariat in order to have a clear picture of the
headway made in the signatory states (“Bologna process scoreboard”) and to draft an analytical
report that was presented to the Bergen Ministerial Conference in May 2005 [10]. Ministers
responsible for higher education in the participating countries of the Bologna Process met at the
Bergen Conference for a mid-term review and for setting goals and priorities towards 2010. At this
conference, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine were welcomed as new
participating countries in the Bologna Process. Ministers responsible for higher education shared
the common understanding of the principles, objectives and commitments of the Process, as
expressed in the Bologna Declaration and in the subsequent communiqués from the Ministerial
Conferences in Prague and Berlin. They also confirmed their commitment to coordinate educational
policies through the Bologna Process in order to establish the European Higher Education Area
(EHEA) by 2010, and committed themselves to assist the new participating countries to implement
the goals of the Process.
The UK provided a Secretariat to the Bologna Follow Up Group and its Board for the two year
period from June 2005 up to June 2007. The Secretariat's aim during this time was to provide
information and news about the work program and developments in the Bologna Process leading up
to the Bologna 5th Ministerial Conference in London on 17-18 May 2007 [11]. At this Conference,
Republic of Montenegro was welcomed as a member of the Bologna Process. The main conclusions
of the Bologna 5th Ministerial Conference in London were:
• Mobility. Some progress has been made since 1999, but many challenges remain. Among
the obstacles to mobility, issues relating to immigration, recognition, insufficient financial
incentives and inflexible pension arrangements feature prominently.
• Degree structure. Good progress is being made at national and institutional levels towards
our goal of an EHEA based on a three-cycle degree system. Efforts should concentrate in
future on removing barriers to access and progression between cycles and on proper
implementation of ECTS based on learning outcomes and student workload. We underline
the importance of improving graduate employability.
• Recognition. There has been progress in the implementation of the Lisbon Recognition
Convention (LRC), ECTS and diploma supplements, but the range of national and
institutional approaches to recognition needs to be more coherent.
• Qualifications Frameworks. Some initial progress has been made towards the
implementation of national qualifications frameworks, but much more effort is required.
Commitment to fully implementing such national qualifications frameworks, certified
against the overarching Framework for Qualifications of the EHEA, by 2010.
• Lifelong Learning. Some elements of flexible learning exist in most countries, but a more
systematic development of flexible learning paths to support lifelong learning is at an early
stage.
From 1 July 2007 responsibility for providing the Secretariat passed to the Benelux Countries.
The new official website address is: http://www.bologna2009benelux.org/, and the contact email

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address for the new Secretariat is: secr@bologna2009benelux.org. The Bologna 6th Ministerial
Conference will take place in Leuven/Louvain-la-Neuve on 28-29 April 2009.

III. QUALITY ALONG THE BOLOGNA’S PROCESS

By signing the Bologna Declaration in 1999, European ministers committed to create a European
Higher Education Area with the strategic objective of the definition of criteria and methodologies to
evaluate the quality in a comparable way, which fosters and supports the development of mobility
of students and staff between Higher Education Institutions (HEI). This task is under the domain of
each institution and conditioned by the legal framework of every country.
According to the Declaration of Prague (2001), it was particularly stressed that the quality should
be an important determinant of Europe’s international attractiveness and competitiveness [12]. As
discussed at the Graz Declaration of the European University Association (EUA), the policy goals
for an appropriate European Quality Assurance dimension were:
• Achieve greater compatibility while managing diversity of Quality Assurance (QA)
procedures.
• Achieve trust. Trust emanates from the way in which the spirit with which QA procedures
and guidelines are carried out rather than simply in having a similar protocol of procedures.
• Preserve and extend institutional autonomy while meeting the demands for accountability.
• Avoid a big bureaucracy, burden some QA mechanisms and promote cost-effective QA
procedures.
• Ensure the role of the Higher Education sector in any future monitoring scheme.
• Promote innovative and dynamic institutions in a context characterised by diversity of
missions, goals and curricula.
Later, in the Berlin Communiqué (September 2003), Ministers said that “the quality of higher
education has proven to be the heart of the setting up a European Higher Education Area”. But
quality in every country is different, so the ministers commit themselves “to support the further
development of quality assurance at institutional, national and European level”. This ministerial
conference, underlined the need and importance of developing common methodological instruments
and criteria to be applied on quality assessment and accreditation processes of Higher Education in
Europe. The responsible for higher education policy in Europe pressed for the establishment of
networks of assessing entities. The entity that was recognized the preferred interlocutor in matters
of quality assurance at Berlin in September 2003 is the ENQA [13]. The ENQA is playing a crucial
role in the implementation of institutional assessment as part of the activities of higher education
institutions. Therefore, they agreed that by 2005 national quality assurance systems should include:
• A definition of the responsibilities of the bodies and institutions involved.
• Evaluation of programs or institutions, including internal assessment, external review,
participation of students and the publication of results.
• A system of accreditation, certification or comparable procedures.
• International participation, cooperation and networking.
One more step in the Bologna Process was taken at Bergen (May 2005). According to the Bergen
Communiqué, European Ministers responsible for Higher Education committed themselves to:
• Continue their efforts to enhance the quality of their activities through the systematic
introduction of internal and external mechanisms.
• Adopt the standards and guidelines for quality assurance in the EHEA, as proposed by
ENQA.
• Introduce the proposed model for peer review of quality assurance agencies on a national
basis, while respecting the commonly accepted guidelines and criteria.
• Promote a European register of quality assurance agencies based on national review.

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•Underline the importance of cooperation between nationally recognised agencies with a
view to enhancing the mutual recognition of accreditation or quality assurance decisions.
• Implement the standards and guidelines for quality assurance as proposed in the ENQA.
Last step in the Bologna Process has been taken recently at the 5th Ministerial Conference hold in
London (May 2007). The main conclusions of this conference regarding quality assurance were:
• The Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the EHEA adopted in Bergen have
been a powerful driver of change in relation to quality assurance. All countries have started
to implement them and some have made substantial progress. The extent of student
involvement at all levels has increased since 2005, although improvement is still necessary.
• It is clear the progress made with regard to mutual recognition of accreditation and quality
assurance decisions, and international cooperation amongst quality assurance agencies must
be strengthened.
• Progress in developing internal quality culture, and in improving the relationship with
external QA agencies, is very encouraging.
• Essential student support services are often neglected in both internal and external QA
processes.
• Many institutions and agencies currently consider only local or national dimensions to
quality assurance and enhancement. Greater communication about developments across
Europe in the QA field is vital.
• key issue. Many higher education systems are currently being held back from Bologna
implementation – and thus from offering improved services to students and society - by
national QA systems that are costly, offer no evidence of overall quality improvement, and
stifle institutions’ capacity to respond creatively to the demands of evolving European
knowledge society.
The focus on quality in the Bologna process has certainly raised awareness within higher
education institutions of the potential benefits and challenges of effective quality assurance and
enhancement activities. More constructive discussion between institutions, quality assurance
agencies, stakeholders and public authorities appears to be taking place, and the involvement of
students in quality assurance activities also seems to be gaining ground. Indeed in some parts of
Europe, quality assurance seems to be replacing degree structure reform as the main topic of interest
in the Bologna process. Currently, almost all countries have made provision for a quality assurance
system based on the criteria set out in the different conferences of ministers responsible of higher
education, and with a high degree of cooperation and networking. However, there is still progress to
be made, in particular with regard to student involvement and international cooperation.

IV. ACREDITATION OF ENGINEERING EDUCATION PROGRAMS

The Engineering in Europe. To facilitate the mobility of professionals, the EU has put in place
legislation to ensure that professional qualifications are recognised on a mutual basis between all
Member States, so that a person entitled to practice a regulated profession in a EU country should
be able to practice the same profession in any other EU country and use the appropriate title. Even
if the profession is not regulated in the home country, a person should still be able to practice in a
Member State where it is regulated, if proof of satisfactory education and professional experience is
provided.
The engineering profession is regulated under Council Directive 89/48/EEC, the First General
System Directive. Applicants must have successfully completed a postsecondary course of at least
three years' duration, at a higher education institution. If the duration of the education and training is
at least one year less than that required in the Member State where the applicant wants to be
recognised, this Member State may require proof of professional experience of a maximum of twice
the shortfall in duration of education and training.

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In 2002 the European Commission presented a proposal for a new framework Directive for the
recognition of professional qualifications, with a few important changes that, if adopted, will alter
the way Member States deal with applications.
• It shall no longer be possible to ask for professional experience as a requirement for giving
recognition. Only compensation measures (adaptation period or aptitude test) can be
applied: applicants shall have the right to choose between the two.
• Professional bodies at a European level can agree on a "common platform", i.e. establishing
a set of criteria the fulfilment of which would grant recognition more or less automatically,
if the common platform is approved by the European Commission.
• There are specific Annexes to the Directive establishing "minimum training conditions"
which all EU countries should apply for certain professions (Med., Arch., Pharm., etc). This
means that the education and training for these professions is to some extent harmonised
throughout Europe, and the member states must notify and get approved the officially
recognised titles which fulfil the criteria of the directive. Those who hold an "accredited"
diploma and the right to use the protected title and practice as a doctor or architect are
granted automatic recognition in any other Member State.

The role of FEANI and the Eur Ing title. FEANI, the European Federation of National
Engineering Associations, promotes the EurIng designation as a guarantee of competence for
professional engineers. It is intended to facilitate the movement of practicing engineers within and
outside the geographical area represented by FEANI and to establish a framework of mutual
recognition of qualifications in order to enable engineers who wish to practice outside their own
country to carry with them a guarantee of competence. To qualify for the EurIng designation, the
following requirements must be met:
• Minimum three years of engineering education recognised by FEANI, and given by a
university (U) or other recognized body at university level, admitted by FEANI.
• Minimum two years of valid professional experience (E).
• In case the education and experience together is less than the minimum seven years
formation required, the balance to seven years should be covered by education (U),
experience (E), or training (T) monitored by the approved engineering institutions, or by
preliminary engineering professional experience.
The European Commission has recognized the EurIng designation as a valuable tool for the
recognition of national diplomas among member States. The Commission considers that an
engineer who has obtained the title of Eur Ing should not normally be required to undertake an
adaptation period or sit an aptitude test.

International Engineering Agreements. There are six international agreements governing mutual
recognition of engineering qualifications and professional competence. The body making
application must verify that it is the appropriate representative body for that country/economy.

Agreements covering tertiary qualifications in engineering

• Washington Accord. http://www.washingtonaccord.org. The first in establishing that graduates
of programs (normally of four years) accredited by each member nation are prepared to practice
engineering at the entry level. Signatory Organizations: Institution of Engineers, Australia 1989,
Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board 1989, Hong Kong Institution of Engineers 1995,
Institution of Engineers of Ireland 1989, IPENZ, New Zealand 1989, Engineering Council of
South Africa 1999, UK Engineering Council 1989, ABET, 1989, USA.
• Sydney Accord. http://www.ieagreements.org/Sydney/default.cfm. Signed in 2001 by the
national engineering organisations of Ireland, UK, Canada, South Africa, Hong Kong, Australia
and New Zealand., this agreement provides joint recognition of academic programmes
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(normally of three years) accredited at Incorporated Engineer level. It operates in a similar way
to the Washington Accord.
• Dublin Accord. http://www.ieagreements.org/Dublin/default.cfm. Signed in May 2002 by the
national engineering organisations of UK, Ireland, South Africa and Canada for substantial
equivalence in the accreditation of tertiary qualifications in technician engineering (normally of
two years).

Agreements covering competence standards for practising engineers

The other three agreements cover recognition of equivalence at the practising engineer level, i.e. it
is individual people, not qualifications that are seen to meet the benchmark standard. The concept of
these agreements is that a person recognised in one country as reaching the agreed international
standard of competence should only be minimally assessed prior to obtaining registration in another
country that is party to the agreement.
• APEC Engineer agreement. http://www.ieagreements.org/APEC/default.cfm. In place since
1999 among a number of Asia-Pacific Cooperation Countries, APEC countries for the purposes
of recognising “substantial equivalence” of professional competence in engineering. APEC
countries can apply to become members of the agreement by demonstrating that they have in
place systems which allow the competence of engineers to be assessed to the agreed
international standard set by the APEC Engineer agreement. The economies which have been
assessed as having the systems in place to operate an APEC Engineer Register include New
Zealand, Australia, the United States, Malaysia, Hong Kong (China), Japan, Korea, Canada and
Indonesia. The representative organization in each economy creates a "register" of those
engineers wishing to be recognised as meeting the generic international standard. Other
economies should give credit when such an engineer seeks to have his or her competence
recognised. The Agreement is largely administered between engineering bodies.
• Engineers Mobility Forum agreement. It operates since 2001 the same competence standard as
the APEC Engineer agreement but any country/economy may join. The parties to the agreement
are largely engineering bodies. There are intentions to draw EMF and APEC closer together.
http://www.ieagreements.com/EMF/default.cfm.
• Engineering Technologist Mobility Forum. Signed by participating economies/countries in
2003, which have agreed to commence establishing a mutual recognition scheme for
engineering technologists. http://www.ieagreements.com/ETMF/default.cfm.

Engineering accreditation programs. There is obviously a growing interest in Europe for
accreditation of engineering education programs and an increasing awareness of the importance of
this for the mobility of engineers and to guarantee the quality of European engineering education
[14] [15]. The issue of accreditation is of vital importance for European Engineering Education and
thus for all associations and institutes involved. SEFI (European Society for Engineering Education,
from the French translation), which should be involved in some way when a European accreditation
system for engineering is created, has been involved in discussions on accreditation, quality and
mobility for the last years. CESAER (Conference of European Schools for Advanced Engineering)
is a multinational association of some 50 leading European universities and schools specialized in
engineering education and research. CESAER and SEFI both play a major representational role in
the field of European Engineering Education. Both share the opinion of the European Ministers
concerning the importance of European cooperation in quality assurance and accreditation. In
certain countries in Europe, Engineering Education programs are already accredited by competent
bodies. SEFI and CESAER welcome any initiative leading to a common reflection, aiming at a
deeper understanding and cooperation between these agencies, and both are fully prepared to pursue
actions in this area, in cooperation with these accreditation agencies and other organizations.
University accreditation is a concept that has, initially and on an intuitive basis, been associated
with university quality, which is in itself a multidimensional concept. Simple sequences of terms in
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the context of university quality have progressively moved towards the concept of accreditation,
which is a much broader concept. The development of quality assessment has become a step
towards guaranteeing quality or quality assurance, leading towards accreditation, a concept which is
linked to "autonomy/ institutional social responsibility" and ongoing improvement.
Therefore, due to internationalization processes and the challenge posed by the construction of the
EHEA, there is a need to adapt to the new situation, where accreditation is seen as an opportunity:
• To preserve the intrinsic diversity in each state's higher education system.
• To make systems of higher education transparent, if accreditation focuses on analyzing the
results of training programs.
• To acknowledge the quality in educational systems.
• To promote professional (graduates) mobility and enable them to freely practice their
services (new working areas), while validating the individual liberties of mobility and
residence described in various treaties. Obviously, including those of students as well.
• To increase understanding and acceptance of our degrees.
• To endorse worldwide interest in European higher education.
The positive experience of networking has been imitated for the purpose of accreditation, so in the
accreditation the institutions establish clear objectives, plan their activities and define their
programmes. The recognition of diplomas and study periods among institutions is a key element in
promoting mobility, and accreditation of the quality of studies and work carried on at institution are
essential for such recognition be possible.
Actually, accreditation systems are being implemented all around the world, playing the leading
role the Anglo-Saxon world with the Washington Accord, a multinational agreement signed in
1989. It recognizes the substantial equivalency of accreditation systems of organizations holding
signatory status for the Engineering Education Programs accredited by them. Also establish that
graduates of programs accredited by the accreditation organizations of each member nation are
prepared to practice engineering at the entry level.
At European level, several initiatives are going on in different countries, but just the Joint Quality
initiative regards a common point of view for the European Union as a whole. In Spain, as a result
of the new university law, a national agency has been created and accreditation pilot projects are
running till it starts to work. At the same time, regional agencies are being created by the regional
governments. Quality, quality assurance and accreditation of programs and persons are taking
importance between the university community glossary.
In an engineering education focus, different entities around the leading world already work on
accreditation, as ABET (USA) [16][17], ASII (Germany), CTI (France), Engineering Council (UK),
Ordem dos Engenheiros (Portugal), CACEI (Mexico), JABEE (Japan), CEAB (Canada), etc.
Professional associations, as FEANI, are also working out.

V. CONCLUSIONS

Accreditation intends to guarantee quality and public accountability in the educational system,
encouraging trust on behalf of students, parents, employers, education administration and society in
general. Accreditation helps to provide society with information relating to the quality of
educational systems and can be used in favour of public accountability. Accreditation facilitates
interaction between educational systems and social agents for the benefit of adequate university
responses to society's needs, and it promotes a “culture of quality” and ongoing improvement.
Accreditation in Engineering Education and in engineering professional life is a commitment with
quality and with consumer protection and for engineers a way of being global in a global world.
Accreditation as a trend is already a reality, and soon, three-four years, it will be installed at
developed countries as a tool of progress.

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The challenge is to establish close contacts between ECA member organizations and their
respective governments as well as recognition authorities. To ensure that students get the highest
possible benefit from the ECA project it will be necessary to provide aggregated online information
on the accredited study programmes and institutions in the various European countries.
Subsequently, an information tool has to be built up by ECA member organizations. Finally, it
remains to be evaluated whether the results of the ECA project can be extended in the future to
other countries or accreditation organizations and whether it can be applied for the mutual
recognition of other quality assurance results.

REFERENCES

[1] Heusser, R., "Mutual Recognition of Accreditation Decisions in Europe", Quality in Higher
Education, vol. 12, no. 3, Nov. 2006.
[2] EUROPEAN ASSOCIATION FOR QUALITY ASSURANCE IN HIGHER EDUCATION
(ENQA), 2005, Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher
Education Area, agreed in Bergen, Norway.
http://www.enqa.eu/files/BergenReport 210205.pdf
[3] EUROPEAN CONSORTIUM FOR ACCREDITATION IN HIGHER EDUCATION (ECA),
Code of Good Practice, December 2004, Zurich. http://www.ecaconsortium.net
[4] EUROPEAN CONSORTIUM FOR ACCREDITATION IN HIGHER EDUCATION (ECA),
2006. http://www.ecaconsortium.net/index.php?section=content&id=1
[5] The Sorbonne Declaration, Joint declaration on harmonisation of the architecture of the
European higher education system, May 25, 1998.
http://www.eees.ua.es/documentos/sorbonne_joint_declaration.pdf
[6] The Bologna Declaration, Joint declaration of the European Ministers of Higher Education, 19
June 19, 1999. http://ec.europa.eu/education/policies/educ/bologna/bologna.pdf
[7] The Salamanca Convention, Message from the Salamanca Convention of European higher
education institutions: SHAPING THE EUROPEAN HIGHER EDUCATION AREA, 29-30
March 2001. http://www.bologna-berlin2003.de/pdf/salamanca_convention.pdf
[8] Prague Ministerial Conference, Joint declaration of the European Ministers of Higher Education,
19 May 2001. http://www.eees.ua.es/documentos/prague_may_19th_2001.pdf
[9] Berlin Ministerial Conference, Joint declaration of the European Ministers of Higher Education,
19 September 2003. http://www.eees.ua.es/documentos/Berlin_ing.pdf
[10] BERGEN COMMUNIQUÉ, The European Higher Education Area: Achieving the goals.
Communiqué of the Conference of European Ministers Responsible for Higher Education, 19–
20 May 2005.
http://www.bologna-bergen2005.no/Docs/00-Main_doc/050520_Bergen_Communique.pdf
[11] London Ministerial Conference, Joint declaration of the European Ministers of Higher
Education, 18 May 2007.
http://www.eees.ua.es/documentos/2007-comunicado-de-la-cumbre.pdf
[12] Wilson, L., "Common instruments for assessment and accreditation in Europe",
Methodological Instruments for assessment and accreditation in the European Framework,
ANECA, July 2004.

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[13] Marcellan, F., "The role of networks in the promotion of mutual recognition of decisions on
accreditation", Methodological Instruments for assessment and accreditation in the European
Framework, ANECA, July 2004.
[14] Docampo, D. The Engineering profession in some relevant countries. Vigo University, 2005.
http://webs.uvigo.es/es-ct/
[15] Docampo, D. BA-MA structure follow-up. Vigo University, 2005.
http://webs.uvigo.es/es-ct/
[16] Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, “Issues of accreditation in higher
education”. ABET 1999.
[17] Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, “Substantial Equivalency Evaluations”.
ABET 2001.
[18] EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND COUNCIL, 2006, ‘Recommendation of the European
Parliament and of the Council of 15 February 2006 on further European cooperation in quality
assurance in higher education’ (2006/143/EC). Official Journal of the European Union L 64/60,
4.3.2006.

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