The European Quality Link EQUAL                                                                                                       

What is EQUAL?
Launched and hosted by the Brussels-based European Foundation for Management Development (efmd), EQUAL is the international association of quality assessment and accreditation agencies in the field of European management education.

Who are the members?

Membership is open to accrediting bodies, national or regional associations of business schools, quality improvement agencies, government agencies involved in certification, and organisations in the process of developing their own accreditation processes, associations of graduates in Business Administration - in short, organisations which contribute something to European initiatives in the field of quality assurance and in provement.
Some members have established procedures for assessing management institutions or programmes. Other national or regional associations in Europe are in the process of developing similar standards and procedures. All are committed to the enhancement of management education and draw their legitimacy and reputation from the quality of their member institutions.

Full members
- Association of Business Schools, UNITED KINGDOM
- AEEDE, SPAIN
- ASFOR, ITALY
- Association Nationale des IAE, FRANCE
- Association of Danish Business Economists, DENMARK
- CAMBAS, CZECH REPUBLIC
- CEEMAN, SLOVENIA
- Chapitre, FRANCE
- efmd, BELGIUM
- FIBAA, GERMANY, AUSTRIA & SWITZERLAND
- FORUM, POLAND
- Norske Sivilokonomers Forening - The Norwegian Association of Masters of Sciences in Business, NORWAY
- RABE, Russian Association of Business Education, RUSSIA
- SEFE, FINLAND
- Swedish Association of Graduates in Economics and Business Administration, SWEDEN
- VSNU, THE NETHERLANDS

Associate members
- AACSB, UNITED STATES
- Akkreditierungsrat, GERMANY
- CFBSD, CANADA
- CLADEA, PERU

The objectives of EQUAL

1. Create an Open Forum

One of EQUALs key roles is to establish a permanent forum for exchange of information, benchmarking and cooperation between the members in order to promote continuous improvement of quality in management education across Europe. EQUALs particular concern is to improve the quality of the processes through which institutions and programmes are assessed. To achieve this, it creates a context for ongoing reflection by the management education community on what standards and criteria should be. By comparing the procedures and criteria of those members who are actively engaged in accreditation at the national or regional level, member organisations learn from each other and converge on best practice. EQUAL also provides support for the development of national and regional agencies where these do not exist. Expert advice and help in setting up accreditation or quality assessment processes can be made available upon request. Another major objective is to provide a forum for fruitful collaboration between established agencies in Western Europe and their Central and Eastern European counterparts. In this perspective EQUAL will promote bilateral or multilateral agreements among its members in order to strengthen their collaboration and in order to recognise the validity of their accreditation and/or quality assessment systems.

2. Create an Open Market for management education services in Europe

EQUALs goal is to contribute to the opening-up of a Europe wide market for management education by providing accurate information on evaluation systems in different countries to help prospective students and employers to identify those institutions and programmes that have gone through a valid accreditation or quality assessment process. EQUAL seeks to promote greater market transparency and increase the cross-border flows of students entering management programmes and of graduates entering the job market. EQUAL thus aims to raise general awareness around Europe of the importance of a concern for quality improvement and quality assessment, as well as to help people to make informed cross-border choices. Accreditation can play a vital role in helping individuals and organisations to maximise the considerable investment associated with management development programmes.

3. Constitute the Support Group for a European accreditation system

An important objective is to constitute a broad basis of reflection on what a European-wide accreditation system should seek to achieve. In an era of accelerating globalisation, it is essential to promote agreement on the major values and characteristics of management education and management practice in Europe. How should European quality standards be defined and by what criteria and through what procedures should they be measured ? EQUAL will continue to contribute to a specifically European approach to accreditation and quality assessment, taking into account both the diversity of national systems and the common core of shared values that distinguish the practice of management and management education in Europe. EQUALs role is to provide the expertise necessary for the setting up of the European accreditation scheme known as EQUIS. The EQUIS project is run by a separate unit within the efmd which has been set up to manage the accreditation process. EQUAL is the vehicle by which the various national systems make their specific contributions to the common vision. Auditors for the peer review system which EQUIS is designing are drawn from EQUAL institutions. Recognition by an appropriate national or regional agency is seen as the first step towards European accreditation. The EQUIS accreditation procedures will take into account criteria that have already been met through the national system.

4. Further the Internationalisation of European management education

The ambition of both EQUAL and the proposed European accreditation scheme called EQUIS is to define the criteria by which institutions can be deemed to have reached an international standing in their operations. EQUAL will thus encourage institutions to accelerate the internationalisation process and contribute to the general upgrading of European management education systems. EQUAL will also interface with non-European accreditation agencies and help integrate European management education into the global market.

Key achievements
- Establishment of EQUAL as an independent association in June 1996
- Enlargement of EQUAL to include new members
- Creation and management of a thematic network involving all 15 member states and most of the accession countries of the European Union with funding by the European Commission under the Socrates Thematic Network Projects (from 1996 to 1999 and from 2000 to 2002)
- European Quality link EQUAL-SOCRATES Dissemination Conference, 26-28 May 2002, Helsinki, Finland
- Drafting of the "Dynamic Model for Quality Development", which served as the basis for the design of the EQUIS accreditation system
- See also EQUAL documents

For further details: www.efmd.org