CUBRIK

'Strengthening Quality Assurance System within Western Balkans HEI's in Support of National and Regional Planning'

Background

The most radical changes in the educational systems of post-communist societies have occurred in the field of higher education. University autonomy, accountability and quality assurance have been identified as the most critical areas for countries in transition, which have the mission to develop a strong and skilled workforce. South East European (SEE) countries are especially facing a growing demand fro skilled labour force. Beyond the question of numbers of students, Balkans countries also face significant problems with the quality assurance that adversely affects the quality of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs).

CUBRIK is a 3-year project which aims at strengthening the quality assurance system of HEIs in Bosnia and Herzagovina, Macedonia and Serbia at university, national and regional levels.

Objectives

Due to the exisiting challenges of the quality assurance system in the three targeted countries, insufficient expertise both in terms of personnel, tools and information, poor co-ordination or communication between nation and universities' authorities, and the lack of cooperation among Ministries, Quality Assurance Agencies and universities, CUBRIK has set specific objectives to improve the current situation:

1. Creation of a quality assurance framework through the development of common QA practices and network at national and regional level.
2. Strengthening capacity building through targeted training programmes and pilot assessment activities for the external institutional assessment of Universities and Quality Assurance Agencies in Western Balkans.

Outcomes and Outputs

1. Creation of a functional framework for the QA implementation:

   - To increase inter-institutional liaison, networking and sharing of best-practices by the creation of a network of expert, development of an information system and drafting of study trend analysis.

2. Set up a Western Balkans Quality Assurance Observatory:

   - To facilitate the communication, agree on common practices, track the last development and foster benchmarking initiatives.

3. Defining common guidelines and methodologies for QA at National and regional level:

   - To foster the creation of integral strategies supported by data evidence and based on the constitution of common values.

4. Strengthen capacity building through targeted training programme.

5. Improve technical capacity by the conducting External Institutional Assessment within HEIs.

6. Widely disseminate project results within Western Balkans institutions and contribute to the Bologna Process by creating attractiveness of the European higher education. 

 Partner Institutions

	University of Alicante (Co-ordinator)	Alicante	España
	Federal Ministry of Education and Science B&H	Mostar	Bosnia & Herzegovina
	The Ministry of Science and Technology of Republic of Srpska	Banja Luka	Bosnia & Herzegovina
	The Ministry of Education and Science of Macedonia	Skopje	Republic of Macedonia
	Ministry of Education	Belgrade	Serbia
	Ministry of Education of Spain	Madrid	Spain
	Agency for Development of Higher Education and Quality Assurance	Banja Luka	Bosnia & Herzegovina
	Higher Education Accreditation Board of the Republic of Macedonia	Skopje	Republic of Macedonia
	Serbian Accreditation and Quality Evaluation Commission	Belgrade	Serbia
	University of Banja Luka	Banja Luka	Bosnia & Herzegovina
	University of Mostar	Mostar	Bosnia & Herzegovina
	University of Tuzla	Tuzla	Bosnia & Herzegovina
	University of Zenica	Zenica	Bosnia & Herzegovina
	University St. Kliment Ohridski	Bitola	Republic of Macedonia
	State University of Tetova	Tetova	Republic of Macedonia
	University of Kragujevac	Kragujevac	Serbia
	University of Novi Sad	Novi Sad	Serbia
	University of Nis	Nis	Serbia
	Erasmushogeschool Burssel	Brussel	BE
	University of College Cork	Cork	Ireland
	Accreditation Agency for Degree Programmes in Engineering	Dusseldorf	DE
	Austrian Agency for Quality Assurance (AQA)	Wien	AT

For further information on the CUBRIK project, please see the following link:

http://www.cubrik.eu/