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Educating the Engineer of 2020: Adapting Engineering Education to the New Century
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INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION OF ENGINEERING DEGREES 139

prevail and which organizations will take the lead. Some of these orga-
nizations are listed below:

• The European Consortium for Accreditation in Higher Educa-
tion (ECA) was established in 2003 to achieve “mutual recog-
nition of accreditation decisions among the participants before
the end of 2007” (ECA, 2003).
• The European Network for Quality Assurance in Higher Edu-
cation (ENQA) was “established to promote European co-
operation in the field of quality assessment and quality assur-
ance between all actors involved in the quality assurance pro-
cess” (ENQA, 2000).
• The Network of Central and Eastern European Quality Assur-
ance Agencies in Higher Education (CEE Network), founded
in 2001, was established “to serve as a clearinghouse for issues
on quality assurance in higher education in the Central and
Eastern European countries” (CEE Network, 2001).
• The Joint Quality Initiative, “an informal network for quality
assurance and accreditation of bachelor and master programmes
in Europe,” is based on the Bologna Declaration of 1999 and
the Prague Communiqué of 2001. The Joint Quality Initiative
works to “adopt a higher education system essentially based on
two main cycles, to co-operate in quality assurance, to design
scenarios for mutual acceptance of evaluation and accredita-
tion/certification mechanisms, to collaborate in establishing a
common framework of reference, and to disseminate best prac-
tice” (Joint Quality Initiative, 2000).
• The European Network of Information Centers (ENIC Net-
work) was formed “to develop policy and practice for the rec-
ognition of qualifications” and to provide information on the
recognition of foreign diplomas, degrees, and other qualifica-
tions; educational systems throughout Europe; and opportuni-
ties for studying abroad, including information on loans and
scholarships and answers to practical questions related to mo-
bility and equivalence (ENIC, 1999).
• The National Academic Recognition Information Centers Net-
work (NARIC Network) was initiated by the European Com-
mission in 1984 to improve academic recognition of diplomas

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