Message of the President, January 30th, 2020

Dear colleagues and friends,

Let me greet you at the beginning of 2020, and wish you good health, luck and success in another challenging year!

This letter comes after a longer break, as we all went through a busy period.
The preparations towards the ENQA evaluation visit are almost finished, and we expect the visit to take place in the middle of 2020. ECBE management had to cope with health issues of some officers on key positions. We started using a document management system and we included archived documents from past accreditations, when available. And, last but not least, we have all been learning to proceed in compliance with the rules we have outlined and approved during our Extraordinary Annual General Meeting in January 2019.

These problems had to be addressed to enable as smooth course of the events as possible, and therefore some changes had to be done in the occupation of some important offices.

Given a clear difference in the strategic view on the Agency, leading to non-compliance with our new procedures and guidelines, the Board of Directors had to dismiss one of the Commissioners. It was certainly not an easy decision but given the fact that we cannot make deviations from the strategy agreed upon in view of the ENQA evaluation, we could not act differently. We fully appreciate his past contributions to ECBE establishment and operation but need to proceed further towards ENQA recognition. Commissioners now have to elect the new Chair, and you will notice their decision on the ECBE website.

Before that, there was also a change in the Senior reviewers positions: Jan Lojda became the Chairperson of Reviewers till our next AGM, when the Board of Directors, Board of Commissioners, and Senior Reviewers will reconsider – after a discussion with you, members – the future occupation of the particular offices.

We co-opted Ray Hilditch and Véronique Sournies, well-known to all of you, as members of the Committee of Appeal. Further, we co-opted Marc Van Gastel, key-note speaker on the last Conference, as Board of director member, representing industry.

So, we are on track towards getting the ENQA recognition. A lot of work still has to be done, and I would like to namely thank Polona Tominc and Jan Vanherck, who are making a great deal of “ENQA-related” work, and I would also like to thank those members, who already replied to Polona and sent her valuable notes to the Self Assessment Report (SAR). We will finalize it with the Board of Directors at our February meeting.

In agreement with ENQA, the evaluation visit is now planned for mid of 2020 (June, early July). This planning gives us a chance to prepare a good self-assessment report, and to widely discuss it with you, ECBE members, representatives of students and business representatives. The final goal is to make ECBE a top-quality assurance agency, recognized by Europe.

At the moment I would also like to remind you to “save the date” for the next annual conference and AGM, which will be held in May 21-23 in Paris. Invitations will arrive to you within two or three weeks.

So, I hope you had a successful start of the year, and together with all the Board members thank you for cooperation and look forward to its successful continuation!

We will keep in touch.

Looking forward to meeting you all in Paris!

Pavel Žufan
President

Brno, January 30th, 2020