ENIC-NARIC Projects
RENSA
The principal aim of the project Recognition of Non-Country Specific Awards (RENSA) was to the further development and sharing of good practice and information to support fair and, as appropriate, consistent recognition of non-country specific qualifications. Non-country specific awards are defined as being defined as those which are wholly international and do not form part of anyone’s national education system. In practice, there are no dedicated guidelines of good practice for the evaluation of non-country specific qualifications nor a clear means of sharing and saving examples of recognition decisions taken by NARICs.
The impact of the project was projected to be threefold:
- The ENIC and NARIC networks benefit from a central, reliable resource both on good practice in evaluating non-national qualifications and from a central resource, accessible to all centres
- The individual centres participating in the study benefit from sharing and reflecting on their recognition procedures for non-country specific awards
- Other stakeholders in the EHEA benefit from the smooth and fair recognition of these awards: students holding these qualifications; along with higher education institutions and employers that may receive applications from these students for the purpose of further study or employment.
The project was coordinated by the UK NARIC (the United Kingdom), with project partners from the Malta Qualifications Recognition Information Centre (Malta), the Agency for Science and Higher Education (Croatia), Quality and Qualifications Ireland (Ireland) and the Centre for Quality Assessment in Higher Education (Lithuania).
The project was carried out from March 2016 to August 2017.
The project was co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Commission.
The results of the project are available below:
ACEPT
For further information, please contact: [email protected]
ARENA – Refugees and Recognition (Toolkit 3)
The ARENA (Toolkit 3) is an Erasmus+ project that seeks to facilitate the mobility, employability and access to further studies for refugees, displaced persons and persons in a refugee-like situation, including those without official documentation of their educational background. This project further test and adjusts the Toolkit for Recognition of Refugees’ Qualifications, especially for cases with insufficient or lacking documentation, in cooperation with a broad range of ENIC-NARIC offices and higher education institutions. The project builds on the results achieved in the previous Erasmus+ Policy Reform projects ‘Refugees and Recognition – Toolkit’ and ‘Refugees and Recognition – Toolkit 2 (REACT)’.
The project was coordinated by the NOKUT (Norway), with project partners including the Malta Qualifications Recognition Information Centre (Malta), and the Malta Collage of Arts, Science and Technology (MCAST)
The ARENA project was co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Commission, and ran from April 2020 till January 2022.
For Further information please go to: mfhea.mt/arena
STACQ
Stacking Credits and the Future of the Qualification (STACQ) is an Erasmus+ project that addresses the continuous developments in flexible, online and alternative forms of learning. It aims to support higher education institutions and ENIC-NARIC centres in evaluating micro-credentials. STACQ aims to support learning mobility based on new forms of learning in the EU and the European Higher Education Area. This was achieved by the publication of a paper, The Rise and Recognition of Micro-Credentials and the creation of an online evaluation tool for micro-credentials, The Micro-Evaluator.
This project was coordinated by Nuffic (Netherlands) in collaboration with MQRIC, UK ENIC, UHR (Sweden) and the Lithuanian Centre for Quality and Assessment in Higher Education. QQI (Ireland), EADTU, ECA and the Art of E-Learning also participated in this project.
The project Stacking Credits and the Future of the Qualification (STACQ) was co-funded by Erasmus+ and ran from October 2020 to March 2022.
ADDS UP
Aiding Digital Diploma Supplement Usage and Promotion (ADDS UP) aimed to improve the use of the Diploma Supplement, in particular supporting higher education institutions to issue the document automatically, digitally, free of charge and in a major European language to every graduate.
This was a 2 year project running from October 2020 – October 2022. It involved identifying current practices regarding the Diploma Supplement, allowing for the sharing of best practices and a peer review process.
The project was led by Ecctis, in partnership with the following organisations:
- MFHEA – MQRIC Malta
- Finnish National Agency for Education, Opetushallitus(National Europass Centre Finland)
- Quality and Qualifications Ireland (National Europass Centre Ireland)
The project has produced three key outputs: a training module, associated guidance, and a survey stock take report. You can access all three below.
ADDS UP Project Stock Take Survey Report
The training module is designed to aid universities and other higher education institutions to learn more about the benefits of the Diploma Supplement and how it can be issued to students, digitally and automatically.
Training Module
The training module is divided into three sections:
- What is the Diploma Supplement and what are digital credentials?
- What are the benefits of issuing a digital Diploma Supplement?
- What are the practicalities around issuing a digital Diploma Supplement?
Accompanying this online training module is the ADDS UP Digital Diploma Supplement Guidance outlining the subjects covered in the training and providing links and tips.
We encourage everyone who completes the training module to send us questions and comments.
Contact: [email protected]
PELIARQ – Promoting European – Levantine Internationalisation
The project Promoting European-Levantine Internationalisation and Automatic Recognition of Qualifications (PELIARQ) seeks to support European higher education institutions to establish improved links with and understanding of the education systems in the Levant (Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria). The project aims for the guidance to be valuable to HEIs across all of Europe. The expected impact is to contribute to new links and partnerships between European HEIs and the region. This guidance toolkit is expected to make internationalisation activities in the Levant clear and easier for European HEIs. In turn this has the potential to generate a direct impact on students and staff in European HEIs who will benefit from the collaboration with colleagues in the Levant. It will also have an impact in the Levant, improving links for HEIs in the region with European counterparts.
Read More here.
You can access the PDF versions of the project outputs here: PELIARQ Guidance Toolkit for Internationalisation and PELIARQ Guidance on Levantine qualification frameworks and credit systems
You can watch the virtual launch event here.
A webinar was held on 9 August 2022 to share more information about the project.
PELIARQ is funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union during the period September 2020 to August 2022. The project is implemented by Ecctis Ltd (UK ENIC), as the lead partner, with the Union of the Universities of the Mediterranean and the Malta Further and Higher Education Authority (MQRIC).
Read more here.
ARAQUA
The principal aim of the project was to explore higher education access qualifications in the project partner countries in order to map these qualifications and develop recommendations for NARICs and higher education institutions for their automatic recognition among the countries.
The main objectives included: setting criteria for mapping higher education access qualifications; preparing recommendations for NARICs and higher education institutions about the automatic recognition of higher education access qualifications; and promoting discussion among NARICs and higher education institutions about the procedures and criteria for automatic recognition of higher education access qualifications.
Activities in this project included; conducting a study about higher education access qualifications in the project countries according to specially designed methodology which resulted in a Desk Study; preparing recommendations about automatic recognition of higher education access qualifications between the project partner countries; one Peer Learning Activity (PLA) in Bucharest, Romania to exchange experiences about automatic recognition of higher education access qualifications and education systems; a national workshop (symposium) explaining the project and the aims of automatic recognition to the Higher Education providers and dissemination of the results to national stakeholders via our website.
This project was coordinated by the Academic Information Centre (AIC) Latvia and included 11 additional partner countries (with Latvia). Partner countries included; Academic Information Centre (coordinator), Latvia; Danish Agency for Higher Education and Science, Denmark; Education and Youth Board, Estonia; Malta Qualifications Recognition Information Centre (MQRIC), Malta; Information Centre on Academic Mobility and Equivalence, Italy; National Centre for Recognition and Equivalence of Diplomas, Romania; Centre for Recognition of Diplomas, Slovakia; Quality and Qualifications Ireland, Ireland; UK ENIC, United Kingdom; National Information Center for Academic Recognition and Mobility, Armenia and the National Centre for Education of the Republic of Latvia (associated partner).
The project was conducted between November 2022 and officially ends in November 2024.
The project was co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Commission.
Project outcomes
Events
Peer learning activity for ENIC/NARIC network “A shift towards automatic recognition of higher education access qualifications: practice and expectations” was held on 29 February 2024 in Bucharest, Romania (hybrid format). The event was arranged by the National Centre for Recognition and Equivalence of Diplomas (CNRED).
Final conference “Automatic Recognition of Higher Education Access Qualifications – Challenges and Possibilities” was held on 2 October 2024 in Tallinn, Estonia. The conference was arranged by the Education and Youth Board – Estonian ENIC/NARIC and Academic Information Centre.
Materials
ARAQUA comparative study report
Road to Automatic Recognition of Higher Education Access Qualifications
(2024)
ARAQUA recommendations
Recommendations on automatic recognition of HE access qualifications in the ARAQUA countries
(2024)
These projects have been funded with support from the European Commission. This communication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.