Online Consultation with Higher Education Institutions on automatic recognition 15 March 2024

On 15 March, 10:00-12:00 CET the Council of Europe’s Ad Hoc Working Group on Automatic Recognition invites representatives from higher education institutions within European Higher Education Area (EHEA) to join an online consultation meeting. The aim of this consultation is to get an understanding of views and approaches to automatic recognition within the EHEA, with the further goal to better inform the preparation of a legal text on automatic recognition issued by the Council of Europe.

The scope of this text, and thus also of this consultation, will be the automatic recognition of qualifications for the purpose of further study in a higher education institution. Qualifications for access to the labour market and for first access to higher education (i.e., school-leaving or equivalent qualifications) will not be considered.

In the context of this consultation, automatic recognition of qualifications means that a qualification giving access to higher education in the country of origin also gives access to higher education in the receiving country with no assessment procedure. In other words, qualifications issued in other countries of the EHEA should be handled in the same way as domestic qualifications. For a more comprehensive overview of the concept of automatic recognition and the background of this consultation, please refer to this paper.

Representatives of higher education institutions who are interested in sharing their experiences with and views on automatic recognition are invited to fill in the questionnaire. Besides questions about the applicant’s personal data, the survey also contains additional questions about current attitudes and approaches to automatic recognition.

The replies to the questions will be used to structure the online consultation taking place on 15 March. Applicants are advised that only one representative per higher education institution will be admitted to the consultation.