A3ES Competitors

QAA is the UK's expert quality body for tertiary education. We are an independent charity working to benefit students and higher education, and one of the world’s experts in quality assurance. We are trusted by higher education providers and regulatory bodies to maintain and enhance quality and standards. We ensure that students are involved in all aspects of our work. We work with governments, agencies and institutions globally to benefit UK higher education and its international reputation. The work we do supports our mission to safeguard standards and improve the quality of UK higher education wherever it is delivered around the world.

The European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA) is an umbrella organisation which represents its members at the European level and internationally, especially in political decision making processes and in co-operations with stakeholder organisations. The Association aims to maintain and enhance the quality of European higher education at a high level, and to act as a major driving force for the development of quality assurance across all the Bologna signatory countries. ENQA contributes to this goal especially by promoting European co-operation in the field of quality assurance in higher education and disseminating information and expertise among its members and towards stakeholders in order to develop and share good practice and to foster the European dimension of quality assurance.

The non-profit CHE Centre for Higher Education is an independent and implementation orientated think tank with an international perspective. The main focus is on the German and European higher education. We are convinced that the scientific system should be versatile to be able to offer, amid changing conditions, optimal and differentiated development opportunities to all those who want to participate in it. We operate at two levels, namely the scientific system level and the level of the individual institutions in it and we advocate suitable framework conditions that enable higher education and research institutions to act autonomously. We pursue and support developments, changes in the science system as well as socio-political and economic targets in a constructive and critical way. We point out positive results and negative developments based on solid evaluations. We draw up studies and opinions on relevant higher education research issues. In doing so we focus on manageable recommendations and their practical implementation. With our differentiated and internationally recognised ranking and other offers of information, we create transparency in regards to the activities and developments on both levels, individual higher education institutions and the scientific system. The ranking is principally a service offer with information for prospective students.