International Relations

The legislation that regulates the Agency’s activities imposes a number of measures that promote its internationalisation:

a) The external evaluation integrates the mandatory participation of experts from foreign or international institutions, in significant numbers;
b) The Appeals Council integrates individuals with experience in similar foreign organisations;
c) The Agency is responsible for the insertion of Portugal in the European system for the quality assurance of higher education;
d) The Agency must join the Register created in the scope of the European system of quality assurance for higher education.

In order to respond to the emphasis on internationalisation by the legislator, the Agency has decided to create a Scientific Council, made up by experts with well recognised international experience, who visit the Agency once a year to discuss its annual progress and to present a report with its views and suggestions to improve the Agency’s procedures. This Council is composed as follows:

  • David Dill, Professor Emeritus of Public Policy, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA.
  • Don Westerheijden, Senior Research Associate, Centre for Higher Education Policy Studies (CHEPS), the Netherlands.
  • Bjørn Stensaker, Professor at Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Oslo, and Research Professor at the Norwegian Institute for Studies in Research and Higher Education (NIFU), Norway.
  • Maarja Beerkens, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Public Administration at Leiden University, the Netherlands.
  • Murray Saunders, Co-Director of the Centre for Higher Education Research and Evaluation and Professor of Evaluation in Education and Work, Lancaster University, UK.
  • Roberto Moscati, Professor of Dipartimento di Scienze Umane per la Formazione “Ricardo Massa”, Universitá degli Studi di Milano, Itália.

The Agency is a member of a number of international organisations. It was accepted as an ENQA full member in June 2014 and it is registered in EQAR since November 2014. It also integrates the CHEA International Quality Group (CIQG), a forum established by CHEA – Council for Higher Education Accreditation (United States) – for bringing together people, ideas and resources from around the world to tackle issues ranging from defining quality and addressing rankings to combating degree mills and accreditation mills.

The Agency, through its Office of Research and Analysis, participates in a number of international projects. Researchers of the Agency are members of the Consortium of Higher Education Researchers (CHER) and participate in a large number of international conferences, publish regularly in international peer-reviewed journals and publish books with international editors.

The Agency has supported the implementation of QA activities in countries such as Mozambique, S. Tomé e Principe and Macau.

The Agency has organised, since 2012, a biennial International Conference (see Events).