ENAEE Newsletter – December 2025, Edition 8

A message from the President

Dear ENAEE community,

As we close 2025, I want to thank each of you—our member agencies, partner organisations, experts, and volunteers—for the commitment and professionalism that keep ENAEE and the EUR-ACE label a trusted reference worldwide. This edition reflects the final trimester of the year with strong collaboration and tangible progress across regions. 

Our General Assembly in Madrid (23–24 October 2025), graciously hosted by IIE, was a real milestone: we exchanged perspectives on accreditation developments, reinforced cooperation among members, and celebrated outstanding service through the ENAEE Excellence Awards for our accreditors. We also renewed and strengthened our governance with the election of three Accreditation Council members, and we were pleased to welcome two observers from JABEE—another sign of ENAEE’s growing global dialogue. 

Beyond Madrid, the news in this issue highlights how our network continues to expand impact through quality and recognition: ZİDEK awarding its first EUR-ACE labels to 23 programmes marks a major step for international visibility in Turkish Agricultural Engineering education. Romania’s ARACIS, celebrating 20 years of service, reminds us how quality assurance strengthens higher education systems over time. And the AAPIA Colloquium in Costa Rica—bringing together Lima Accord agencies—shows how regional cooperation and mutual recognition continue to mature. 

Finally, I was delighted to see the strong momentum at MedAccred V in Rabat (11–13 December), where the discussions—from European QA standards to micro-badging, AI-related challenges, and SDG integration—underline how our work must keep evolving with society and technology, while remaining anchored in rigorous, trustworthy evaluation. 

May this season bring you well-deserved rest, joyful moments with your loved ones, and renewed energy for 2026. I look forward to continuing our shared work—strengthening quality, enabling recognition, and supporting engineering education that truly serves learners and society.

Warm season’s greetings,

José Carlos Quadrado

ENAEE General Assembly in Madrid

The ENAEE General Assembly was held in Madrid on 23-24 October 2025, hosted by our Spanish member IIE – Instituto de la Ingeniería de España.  

The event united global members to discuss accreditation standards, share insights, and strengthen international collaboration.

A workshop was held for our member agencies, conducted by José Carlos Quadrado, discussing the EUR-ACE® label recognition value for the various stakeholders.

IIE hosted a dinner, celebrating regional hospitality and honouring Sebnem Baydere, Bohdan Macukow and Rui Pinheiro Marques de Brito, who received the 2025 ENAEE excellence award for EUR-ACE® agency evaluators for their exceptional contributions.

Three members of the Accreditation Council were elected: Matthias Werner was re-elected for a three-year term, Kseniya Zaitseva and Dario Amodio were elected for a first three-year term. Two observers from JABEE, Japan were also welcomed to join the meeting.

This milestone event reaffirmed ENAEE’s commitment to global excellence in accreditation. Special thanks go to IIE for hosting the event.

MedAccred V opens at Université Internationale de Rabat

MedAccred V officially opened at the Université Internationale de Rabat (11–13 December), bringing together partners and participants around accreditation and quality assurance in higher education. The symposium programme highlights European QA standards; accreditation approaches across engineering and management (including ENAEE); student mobility certification and micro-badging; and emerging challenges around AI (ethics, transparency, plagiarism, bias, and AI skill certification), alongside integrating the UN SDGs into accreditation frameworks. The ENAEE President delivered the main keynote, with participation also noted from the President of CTI.

ARACIS celebrates 20th anniversary

To celebrate its 20th anniversary, Romania’s ARACIS has organised events throughout the year.

They held 4 international webinars in May and June, focused on key Bologna Process commitments, which featured insightful contributions from leading experts in European higher education and which reaffirmed ARACIS’s commitment to advancing quality assurance and strengthening European collaboration.

In June they also held a national seminar with QA officers from Romanian higher education institutions and representatives of national authorities, to discuss the external QA framework and the development of a quality culture in higher education. 

The celebrations culminated with the International Anniversary Conference in October, featuring high-level representatives from ENQA, EQAR, EUA, OECD, The European Commission and national stakeholders, thus confirming ARACIS’s openness and international recognition, as well as the agency’s ongoing commitment to promoting best practices in education quality assurance.

assurance adapted to Central Asia.

Acredita CI at first AAPIA Colloquium

Acredita CI participated in the panel of the First AAPIA 2025 Colloquium, held in San José, Costa Rica, as part of the institutional celebrations of the AAPIA anniversary. The activities were organized in conjunction with the Federated College of Engineers and Architects of Costa Rica (CFIA). The meeting brought together the four agencies that signed the Lima Accord: CACEI (Mexico), ICACIT (Peru), AAPIA (Costa Rica), and Acredita CI (Chile), three of which are full members of ENAEE.

In the panel “International Accreditation Agencies” the meeting provided an opportunity to share progress, challenges, and best practices in the implementation of international criteria, reinforcing the joint commitment to promote substantial equivalence of engineering programs.

Acredita CI General Manager, Jessica Pizarro, described the criteria of the accreditation model they use to demonstrate how these contribute to a comprehensive assessment of the program’s academic quality. She presented the Graduate Profile Competency Achievement Measurement Model as a suggestion for generating the necessary evidence regarding the continuous improvement of student learning and the outcome of the training process.

The colloquium also marked an important milestone with the joint announcement of the upcoming Lima Accord Register of Evaluators, a regional initiative that will improve the training and consistency of evaluation teams throughout Latin America.

ZİDEK awards its first EUR-ACE® labels

The Association for Evaluation and Accreditation of Agricultural Engineering Educational Programs (ZİDEK), a full member of ENAEE since May 2023, was authorized to award the EUR-ACE® Label to first-cycle Bachelor of Engineering programmes for a full 5-year term from 1 June 2025 to 31 December 2030.

ZİDEK has awarded its first EUR-ACE® Labels to 23 Agricultural Engineering programs from 6 different faculties, namely, Ankara University, Atatürk University, Bursa Uludağ University, Çukurova University and Tekirdağ Namık Kemal University Faculties of Agriculture, which is a milestone in Turkish Agricultural Engineering education in terms of international recognition. Program administrators will be presented with EUR-ACE® Label certificates this month.

The Engineering, Architecture, and Urban Planning Education Workshop organized by the Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects (TMMOB) was held on November 8. The workshop addressed the topics “What Kind of Internship Do We Want?”, “What Kind of University Education Do We Want?”, and “Accreditation Practices”. ZİDEK Executive Board Chair Prof. Dr. Gökhan SÖYLEMEZOĞLU and ZİDEK Continuous Improvement Committee Member Prof. Dr. Ahmet ÇOLAK attended and provided information about ZİDEK, accreditation of Agricultural, Forestry, and Aquacultural Engineering Programs, ENAEE and EUR-ACE Label.

Finally, a meeting entitled “Pathway to a European Degree Label in Engineering” was held online on November 13, led by Timothèe Toury, the Commission des Titres d’Ingénieur (CTI) Representative of the EUR-ACE Framework Standards and Guidelines Review Committee. Timothèe Toury and Emīlija Sarma Zane gave a presentation on a proposal aimed at defining a common European Engineering Degree Label framework, based on the EUR-ACE model.

Strengthening ties with JABEE (Japan)

JABEE—established in 1999 and active since 2001—is a non-governmental organisation that evaluates and accredits educational programmes, supporting quality enhancement through a peer-review evaluation process. In the context of ENAEE’s international outreach, the ENAEE President visited JABEE to discuss a possible integration of JABEE within ENAEE, and JABEE also sent two observers to the ENAEE General Assembly in Madrid. model.

Newsletter contributions

Members are invited to submit their contributions for the Newsletter (upcoming editions: March, June and September) using the provided template. Contact secretary.general@enaee.eu