The project aimed to implement fair automatic recognition by offering guidance in policy development on an European and national level. Furthermore, through capacity building, higher education institutions were encouraged to improve their expertise on automatic recognition.

The project Implementation of Automatic Recognition in the Networks (I-AR), which ran from 2020 to 2023, formed an important next step in the achievement of automatic recognition in the European Higher Education Area (EHEA).

Automatic recognition is system level recognition (level and quality) and occurs on basis of pre-set criteria

I-AR caters to the needs of ENIC-NARIC centres, higher education institutions and other actors involved in achieving automatic recognition in the EHEA (rectors conferences, quality assurance organisations, ministries of education, policy makers).

The activities of the I-AR project aimed to improve automatic recognition at the European, national and institutional level. The project produced various outcomes, including:

  • a table with system-level comparisons of qualifications in EHEA that national authorities can use to enter into (non) legally binding AR agreements between countries, and as such supports efficient and consistent implementation;
  • a 2nd updated edition of the EAR manual supporting fair and automatic recognition practices in the EU/EHEA;
  • a paper analysing the implications of the Global Recognition Convention on the Lisbon Recognition Convention to support its implementation in the ENIC-NARIC Networks;
  • an outcome report on a series of measures to improve fair and automatic recognition implemented by 11 participating ENIC-NARIC centres