The evolution towards a more knowledge-based society and strong competition in the labour market has resulted in an increasing interest in higher education in Europe. Given the large number of higher education institutions (HEIs) and study programmes on the marked, choosing a programme and an institution has become more difficult. As a result, students, other stakeholders and the public at large are looking for more detailed, reliable and comparable information on the quality of individual study programmes, faculties and HEIs. [...] In response to the growing need for accessible and reliable information on institutions and study programmes, ENQA has carried out the EU-funded "Transparency of European higher education through public quality assurance reports" (EQArep)" project. The overall aim of the projekt is to unterstand the needs of the relevant stakeholders and to improve the QA reports produced by QA agencies as a result. [...] This report presents the result of the acitivities carried out in the context of the EQArep projekt. In doing so, the report sets out the current practices of QA agencies in publishing the outcomes of their evaluations (QA reports) and an overview of the use and usefulness of these QA reports from stakeholders perspektive. Both analyses are based on the findings of surveys and workshops carried out as part of the project.

A contribution of Tiia Bach, Dirdica Dragojevic, Peter Findlay, Stephanie Hering, Liia Lauri, Orla Lynch, Zeynep Olcen and Maiki Udam.