Includes bibliographical references.

Ch. 1. Accreditation in the Framework of Evaluation Activities: A Comparative Study in the European Higher Education Area / Stefanie Schwarz & Don F. Westerheijden -- Ch. 2. Accreditation and Differentiation: A Policy to Establish New Sectors in Austrian Higher Education / Hans Pechar & Cornelia Klepp -- Ch. 3. Czech Quality Assurance: The Tasks and Responsibilities of Accreditation and Evaluation / Helena Sebrova -- Ch. 4. Ministerial Approval and Improvement-Oriented Evaluation in Denmark: An Alternative to Accreditation? / Dorte Kristoffersen -- Ch. 5. Three Rounds of Evaluation and the Idea of Accreditation in Finnish Higher Education / Jussi Välimaa -- Ch. 6. Quality Assurance and Accreditation in the Flemish Community of Belgium / Dirk Damme -- Ch. 7. The Changing Role of the State in French Higher Education: From Curriculum Control to Programme Accreditation / Thierry Chevaillier -- Ch. 8. Shift of Paradigm in Quality Assurance in Germany: More Autonomy but Multiple Quality Assessment? / Angelika Schade -- Ch. 9. The National System of Higher Education in Greece: Waiting for a Systematic Quality Assurance System / Harilaos Billiris -- Ch. 10. Quality Assurance in Motion. Higher Education in Hungary after the Change of Regime and the First Cycle of Accreditation / Christina Rozsnyai -- Ch. 11. Practice and Procedures Regarding Accreditation and Evaluation in the Irish Republic / Maureen Killeavy -- Ch. 12. Italy: Accreditation in Progress. Autonomy, Minimum Standards, Quality Assurance / Carlo Finocchietti & Silvia Capucci -- Ch. 13. Latvia: Completion of the First Accreditation Round – What Next? / Andrejs Rauhvargers -- Ch. 14. Multipurpose Accreditation in Lithuania: Facilitating Quality Improvement, and Heading towards a Binary System of Higher Education / Birutè Victoria Mockienè -- Ch. 15. The Netherlands: A Leader in Quality Assurance Follows the Accreditation Trend / Margarita Jeliazkova (et al.) -- Ch. 16. The Blurring Boundaries Between Accreditation and Audit: The Case of Norway / Bjorn Stensaker -- Ch. 17. Accreditation and Evaluation in Poland: Concepts, Developments and Trends / Ewa Chmielecka & Marcin Dabrowski -- Ch. 18. Portugal: Professional and Academic Accreditation – The Impossible Marriage? / Alberto Amaral & Maria Joao Rosa -- Ch. 19. A Decade of Quality Assurance in Spanish Universities / José Ginés Mora -- Ch. 20. From Audit to Accreditation-Like Processes: The Case of Sweden / Staffan Wahlén -- Ch. 21. Accreditation and Related Regulatory Matters in the United Kingdom / John Brennan & Ruth Williams.

This volume presents a rich account of the development of accreditation and evaluation in 20 European countries. The authors are leaders in the field and they have cooperated in this effort by writing richly different, often deep and insightful analyses of the situation in their country. The two editors have added a synopsis detailing the main trends, and sketching commonalities as well as contrasts in the developments across Europe. The book shows how accreditation is becoming a main mechanism in the steering of higher education all over Europe. The book is unique in its analysis of forces driving towards the spread of different models of accreditation in the emerging European Higher Education area. Readers will obtain an up-to-date picture of the state of affairs of accreditation in the framework of evaluation activities in Europe. They will gain an understanding of why accreditation and evaluation systems have evolved the way they have, and subsequently, they will obtain more realistic views on potentialities for European comparability and cooperation in this area.