eqar.eu

DEQAR is EQAR's database of higher education institutions and programmes that have been subject to external quality assurance, with direct access to the corresponding reports. Use it when you need to check whether a specific institution or programme has been reviewed, which agency carried out the review, and what the outcome was. According to EQAR's own site, the database currently holds 134,243 reports covering 5,192 institutions, and you can filter providers to narrow that set down.

What DEQAR contains

DEQAR sits alongside two other EQAR resources: the Register of quality assurance agencies and the Knowledge base of country information. Each answers a different question:

The common framework behind all of this is the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the EHEA (ESG). Higher education in the European Higher Education Area is subject to regular external review by a quality assurance agency, and EQAR is the EHEA's official register of agencies that substantially comply with the ESG.

What you can do in DEQAR

• Look up an institution or programme to see whether it has undergone external quality assurance.
• Open the corresponding report rather than relying on a summary — DEQAR's stated purpose is easy access to the reports themselves.
• Filter providers to work through the large volume of records (over 134,000 reports across more than 5,000 institutions) instead of browsing everything.
• Cross-check the agency in the Register, since a report's value depends on whether the agency that produced it complies with the ESG.

How to use it in practice

1. Start from the database entry for the institution or programme you care about.
2. Confirm that a review exists and note which agency conducted it.
3. Open the linked report to read the actual findings and any conditions or follow-up requirements.
4. If you need context on the country's system — for example, whether the review is mandatory or how it fits national rules — move to the Knowledge base country information.
5. If your question is about the agency rather than the institution, check the Register instead.

A concrete case: a student comparing two master's programmes in different EHEA countries can use DEQAR to confirm both were externally reviewed, then read each report to see whether either carried conditions. The database tells you a review happened and gives you the evidence; it does not rank institutions or tell you which programme to choose.

Limits worth knowing

DEQAR covers institutions and programmes that have been subject to external quality assurance — it is not a complete list of every institution in the EHEA, and absence from the database is not by itself a judgement about quality. The Register, similarly, lists agencies that substantially comply with the ESG; it is a register of agencies, not a ranking of institutions. For anything beyond what the reports and country information state, go back to the source documents themselves.

EQAR's Knowledge base is the place to start. It describes the national quality assurance (QA) frameworks of the countries in the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) and collects other information on QA in Europe, so it works as a single entry point for comparing how QA is organised from one country to another. You reach it from the EQAR website (eqar.eu) under "Knowledge base".

What the Knowledge base covers

• Country information — descriptions of how each EHEA country's national QA framework is set up.
• Other information on QA in Europe — additional material on quality assurance beyond the individual country pages.

Because the country descriptions follow a common EHEA-wide reference point, they are useful when you want to compare systems rather than read about one country in isolation.

The framework behind the country information

The common framework that the country information refers to is the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the EHEA (ESG). Higher education in the EHEA is subject to regular external review by a quality assurance agency (QAA), and the ESG is the agreed common framework for those QA systems. EQAR is the EHEA's official register of QAAs, listing those that substantially comply with the ESG.

That matters for reading country information: when a country page describes its national QA framework, the ESG is the benchmark the arrangements are measured against.

How to use it

1. Go to eqar.eu and open the Knowledge base.
2. Select the country you need.
3. Read the description of its national QA framework, then use the other QA-in-Europe material for context.

If your question is about a specific agency rather than a country, use the Register of trustworthy quality assurance agencies in the EHEA instead. If you need evidence of external quality assurance of particular institutions or programmes, use DEQAR, EQAR's database of higher education institutions and programmes that have been subject to external quality assurance, with access to the corresponding reports.

What you can and cannot conclude

The Knowledge base tells you how national QA frameworks are organised and how they relate to the ESG. It is a description of frameworks, not a ranking of countries or institutions. For judgements about a specific institution or programme, follow the link to the relevant external quality assurance reports rather than relying on the country description alone.

Related EQAR resources

The EQAR Register is the European Higher Education Area's official list of quality assurance agencies (QAAs) that substantially comply with the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the EHEA (ESG). Use it when you need to check whether a particular agency is a trustworthy reviewer of higher education institutions or programmes, or when you want to see which agencies operate under the agreed European framework. It is a register of agencies, not of institutions or programmes — for institutional and programme review results, EQAR points to a separate database.

What the Register actually contains

The Register lists quality assurance agencies that have been assessed against the ESG and found to substantially comply with them. Because the ESG is the common framework agreed across the EHEA, an agency's presence on the Register is a signal that its external review work follows shared European expectations rather than purely national ones.

The Register is one of three main resources EQAR describes:

If your question is "is this agency credible?", the Register is the relevant tool. If your question is "has this institution or programme been reviewed, and what did the report say?", DEQAR is the relevant tool.

How an agency gets onto the Register

Registration is not automatic and is not a one-off label. Agencies apply for registration, and decisions are taken by the Register Committee, which meets periodically — EQAR publishes its decisions after meetings such as the summer and autumn sessions. That means the Register reflects ongoing review rather than a permanent status: an agency's entry depends on continued substantial compliance with the ESG.

For a practical check, this matters in two ways:

• Look at the agency, not just the country. A national QA system may exist without the agency being on the Register.
• Check the current status. Because decisions are made at committee meetings, the composition of the Register changes over time.

How to use it in practice

1. Identify the agency named in a review report, accreditation decision, or institutional claim.
2. Search the Register on eqar.eu to see whether that agency is listed.
3. If it is listed, you have evidence that it substantially complies with the ESG — useful when comparing credentials across countries.
4. If it is not listed, that does not by itself prove the agency is untrustworthy; it may simply not have applied, or not have been assessed. Treat it as a signal to look further.
5. For review outcomes, move to DEQAR, which currently holds 134,243 reports covering 5,192 institutions, to find the actual external quality assurance reports.

Where the Register is useful — and where it is not

Good fit: students, institutions, and administrators trying to judge whether a QA agency operates within the European framework; anyone comparing how quality assurance is organised across EHEA countries.

Poor fit: checking whether a specific degree or institution is "good" — that requires the review reports in DEQAR, and the Knowledge base for how each country's national QA framework is set up.

EQAR also runs projects and publishes a newsletter (roughly four issues per year) covering new agencies on the Register, policy developments, and how EQAR is used in national QA frameworks — useful if you need to track changes rather than make a one-time check.

EQAR is the European Higher Education Area's official register of quality assurance agencies. It lists agencies that substantially comply with the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the EHEA (ESG), and it backs that register with two further resources: a database of quality assurance results (DEQAR) and a knowledge base on national QA frameworks. It is useful if you need to check whether an agency is trustworthy, find external review reports on a specific institution or programme, or understand how quality assurance works in a given EHEA country.

What EQAR actually does

Higher education across the EHEA is subject to regular external review by a quality assurance agency (QAA). The common framework those reviews follow is the ESG. EQAR's role is to maintain the official list of QAAs that substantially comply with the ESG — so the Register functions as a trust signal rather than a ranking.

The site describes its purpose as providing "reliable information on quality of European higher education and its assurance," organised around three things you can look up.

The three resources

As of the site's current figures, the database holds 134,243 reports covering 5,192 institutions.

Who it is for

• Students and families checking whether a programme's quality assurance is credible.
• Institutions looking for an agency whose review will be recognised across the EHEA.
• Agencies considering applying for registration.
• Policy and research audiences comparing national QA frameworks.

How registration works

Agencies do not self-declare onto the Register. They apply for registration, and EQAR's Register Committee decides on inclusion. The Committee meets periodically — the site lists autumn and summer meetings with published decisions — so registration status changes on a meeting cycle rather than continuously.

If you are an agency, the entry point is the "Apply for registration" route. If you are checking an agency, the Register itself is the authoritative list.

Practical notes

• EQAR covers the European Higher Education Area, not the EU alone — the two are not the same grouping.
• Registration means substantial ESG compliance; it is not a ranking of agencies or of institutions.
• DEQAR links to actual review reports, so you can read the evidence rather than rely on a summary.
• The site also runs projects and publishes a newsletter (about four issues per year) covering new agencies, policy developments, and how EQAR is used in national QA frameworks.

Quick answers

Is EQAR an accreditor? No. It registers the agencies that do the reviewing; it does not accredit institutions itself.

Can I find a specific university there? Yes, if that institution has been subject to external quality assurance, its record and reports should appear in DEQAR.

Where do I start? Use the Register to check an agency, DEQAR to check an institution or programme, and the knowledge base to understand a country's system.

A quality assurance agency (QAA) applies for EQAR registration through the application process published on EQAR's website. EQAR is the European Higher Education Area's (EHEA) official register of QAAs, and it lists agencies that substantially comply with the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the EHEA (ESG). Registration is therefore a recognition of ESG compliance, not a one-off certification: the Register Committee reviews applications and makes the decisions, and its meeting outcomes are published (for example, the Register Committee's summer and autumn meeting decisions).

What registration means

• EQAR lists quality assurance agencies that substantially comply with the ESG.
• The ESG is the agreed common framework for quality assurance systems in the EHEA.
• Higher education in the EHEA is subject to regular external review by a QAA, so registration signals that an agency operates within that shared framework.
• The Register is described by EQAR as the register of trustworthy quality assurance agencies in the EHEA.

Where the application process lives

EQAR's site provides a dedicated Apply for registration entry point alongside the Register itself. Because application requirements, forms and procedural documents can change, use that page as the authoritative source rather than relying on second-hand summaries.

Practical starting points on eqar.eu:

1. Apply for registration – the application route for agencies.
2. Register – the list of agencies already registered, useful for seeing which agencies have completed the process.
3. Register Committee meeting decisions – published outcomes that show how applications are decided in practice.
4. Knowledge base / Country information – context on national QA frameworks, which helps an agency understand how registration interacts with its own national system.

Who decides, and how to verify status

The Register Committee reviews applications and issues decisions; its meetings (including summer and autumn sessions) produce published decisions. If you want to check whether an agency is registered, or how a comparable application was handled, the Register and the Committee decisions are the two places to look.

Common sticking points

• Substantial compliance, not perfection: the test is substantial compliance with the ESG, so the relevant question is how the agency's processes map onto the ESG rather than whether it matches any single national model.
• National context matters: EQAR's country information describes national QA frameworks across the EHEA, which is useful for understanding how registration relates to domestic requirements.
• Use current documents: procedures and forms are maintained on EQAR's own pages; confirm details there before submitting anything.

For the exact steps, required documents and any deadlines, go directly to the Apply for registration section of eqar.eu.