AIKA Conference “Creating Quality Together” Marks a New Stage in Higher Education Quality Assessment

On October 30, 2025, the Quality Agency for Higher Education (AIKA) officially launched the ESF project “Implementation of Cyclical Institutional Accreditation in Higher Education” with the conference “AIKA – Creating Quality Together”, while also marking ten years since the Academic Information Centre established AIKA, which serves as Latvia’s national higher education quality assurance agency.

The conference brought together more than 100 participants from universities and colleges, other cooperation partners in Latvia, as well as guests from the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA) and the European Quality Assurance Register for Higher Education (EQAR).

The head of the agency, Jolanta Silka, emphasized that “AIKA’s ten years of operation prove that quality in higher education is created together – with universities, students, and social partners. With this new project, we are taking a step forward to strengthen the institutional quality culture in Latvia.”

The conference provided an opportunity to jointly reflect on the establishment of AIKA as a national quality assurance agency, to review the study field accreditation process and its results, and to learn about current developments in the European Higher Education Area — including a presentation of the publicly available draft version of the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area (ESG).

During the panel discussion “Implementation of Cyclical Institutional Accreditation in Practice – Challenges and Opportunities”, which featured a wide representation of AIKA’s cooperation partners, participants outlined key conclusions from the study field accreditation, and tasks and recommendations for the successful implementation of cyclical institutional accreditation.

At the conclusion of the conference, AIKA presented the timeline and main activities of the ESF project “Implementation of Cyclical Institutional Accreditation in Higher Education” and its alignment with AIKA’s strategic development directions for the period 2024–2028.

Conference presentations are available here:

• Asnate Upmace – Development of the Quality Agency for Higher Education and Evaluation Approach
• Ketija Andersone and Jolanta Silka – Accreditation of Study Fields and Related Study Programmes: Results and Insights
• Patrick Van den Bosch – Creating Quality Together: ENQA’s Position in Shaping Future Quality Assurance
• Aleksandar Šušnjar – Revision of the ESG and Trends in External QA in Europe
• Jolanta Silka and Asnate Upmace – Towards More Effective Quality Evaluation

AIKA extends its gratitude to universities and colleges, the Rectors’ Council, the Latvian Colleges Association, the Ministry of Education and Science, the Student Union of Latvia, the Employers’ Confederation of Latvia, the Higher Education Council, the State Education Quality Service, the Latvian Trade Union of Education and Science Employees, the Ministry of Health, and other cooperation partners for their contributions over the past ten years.

We look forward to continued active, professional, and respectful collaboration in the years ahead!