The research project "SMART-QUAL: Structured indicators to manage HEI Quality System”, supported by the UIC Barcelona Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences and funded by the Erasmus+ programme, is now underway. The results from the first work package were presented in the first meeting between the universities and entities involved in the project, which followed an initial phase of gathering information on higher education institutions’ quality management systems. As such, UIC Barcelona researchers were able to identify five institutions that already implement a highly advanced quality management system.

By compiling and reviewing different proposals, the research aims to develop a set of indicators (Quality Indicators Scoreboard) to be used as a reference framework for harmonising the processes involved in higher education quality management systems on an international scale. The study also seeks to design a guide for implementing these indicators in quality assurance systems to improve their efficiency in the short and long term.

The international cooperation organisation CONNEX-EU is coordinating the project and several universities and quality agencies from across Europe are involved,in addition to UIC Barcelona. The universities involved are the University of Minho (Portugal), the University of Aveiro(Portugal), the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium) and the Royal Turin Polytechnic (Italy). The quality agencies participating are AQU Catalunya (Spain), the SKVC Centre for Quality Assessment in Higher Education (Lithuania) and the A3ES Agency for Assessment and Accreditation of Higher Education (Portugal).

The Erasmus+ programme, promoted by the European Union, seeks to nurture the sustainable development of higher education in partner countries and help the EU Youth Strategy achieve their objectives.