University Quality Assurance Forum 2026


A Tectonic Shift in Quality Assurance of Higher Education Ⅱ:
Lessons We Should Draw Today from Developments
in the UK and France

Thursday, October 1, 2026
3:00PM - 6:00PM JST (UTC+9) / 6:00AM - 9:00AM GMT (UTC+0)

Join ONLINE 

Japanese-English simultaneous interpretation available

Organizer:

National Institution for Academic Degrees and Quality Enhancement of Higher Education (NIAD-QE)

Supporting Organizations:

Japan University Accreditation Association (JUAA)
Japan Institution for Higher Education Evaluation (JIHEE)
Japan Association for College Accreditation (JACA)
Japan Association for Quality of University Education (JAQUE)
Japan Network of Certified Evaluation and Accreditation Agencies (JNCEAA)
Asia-Pacific Quality Network (APQN)

Overview

The previous University Quality Assurance Forum (FY2024), entitled A Tectonic Shift in Quality Assurance of Higher Education, examined major changes taking place in higher education evaluation and quality assurance in the UK. Yet the tectonic shift in quality assurance is unfolding not only in the UK but across Europe and around the world. Japan is no exception. The report, Future Vision for Improving Japan's “Collective Knowledge and Wisdom”: Reconstructing the Higher Education System, issued in February 2025 by the Central Council for Education, an advisory body within MEXT, called for the establishment of a new system for quality assurance and enhancement in higher education. In response, discussions on the future direction of a “new evaluation system” are now actively underway in Japan. Current debates focus largely on issues such as the introduction of a multi-level evaluation system and whether evaluation should be disciplinary or institutional. Beneath these discussions, however, lies a more fundamental philosophical question: What is evaluation, and what is it meant to achieve? This question emerged as one of the most significant points of debate in our previous forum and through our studies of evaluation systems and practices in other countries.
 
To advance this discussion, the University Quality Assurance Forum 2026 will welcome speakers from two leading quality assurance bodies in Europe. The first is the Office for Students (OfS), the public body responsible for regulating and overseeing higher education institutions in England. Among its responsibilities are the administration of the registration system for higher education providers and the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF), a framework for evaluating educational excellence on a multi-level scale. The second is the High Council for the Evaluation of Research and Higher Education (Hcéres), the independent public authority responsible for evaluating France's higher education system, which has recently undertaken significant reforms to its evaluation framework, including the abolition of its multi-level disciplinary evaluation system. Through presentations from these organizations, the forum will explore how England and France have developed distinct evaluation systems and the contrasting philosophies behind them. For all of us who have been, and will continue to be, involved in quality assurance and evaluation, understanding how countries around the world have developed evaluation systems and quality assurance philosophies adapted to their own historical, political, and economic circumstances, and drawing lessons from those experiences as we consider the future of evaluation in Japan is an important intellectual responsibility.
 
The University Quality Assurance Forum 2026 is convened in the hope that, together with the accompanying Professional Development Seminar for Quality Enhancement in Higher Education, which we also organize, it will stimulate and enrich discussions on the evolving landscape of university evaluation in Japan.
 

Agenda

Secretariat

Secretariat for NIAD-QE University Quality Assurance Forum 2026
International Affairs Division, NIAD-QE
 uqa-forum[a]niad.ac.jp　*Please replace [a] with @.

Go to University Quality Assurance Forum 2024