The Steering Committee of the European Students Union (ESU) QA Student Experts Pool hereby opens a call for 90-100 members to join ESU QA Student Experts Pool for the membership term 2024/2025. All applications must be submitted by the 19th of May, 2024, 23:59 CEST, by filling out the following application form and uploading the necessary documents.
The ESU’s Quality Assurance Student Experts’ Pool has been established to promote student engagement in quality assurance and to contribute to the improvement of higher education provision in the European Higher Education Area. It aims to develop ESU as a crucial partner for quality assurance agencies in Europe and to play a leading role in quality assurance policy developments.
For these purposes, members of the pool are trained and can be nominated to participate in quality assurance procedures, e.g. reviews, thus promoting student participation in quality assurance processes across Europe. Through the pool, ESU also undertakes capacity-building and development activities in quality assurance in higher education on the national level, in cooperation with the National Students’ Union members of ESU.
During the past years, ESU has organised several pieces of training at the European level. So far, ESU has nominated an increasing number of students to take part in various international external evaluations organised by different quality assurance agencies all over Europe. Furthermore, ESU is cooperating with the Institutional Evaluation Programme of the European University Association (EUA) and is nominating students for external reviews of quality assurance agencies for the purposes of determining membership in the European Association of Quality Assurance (ENQA) and/or inclusion in the European Quality Assurance Register for Higher Education (EQAR).
Benefits of being the member of QA Pool:
● learning about European higher education;
● possibility to be involved in quality assurance processes at a programme, institutional, appellate, national, and international level (e.g. evaluations of institutions and quality assurance agencies);
● possibility to participate in quality assurance governing bodies, such as in those of quality assurance agencies;
● receiving regular updates about the newest developments in the field of quality assurance;
● opportunities to attend external quality assurance events;
● possibilities for networking with other people interested in the topic of quality assurance;
● opportunities to participate in specially designed pieces of training for experts;
● opportunities to develop transferable skills, such as communication skills, peer assessment, etc.
Tasks and responsibilities that can be expected from ESU QA Pool member:
● share knowledge and experience in quality assurance;
● discuss topics in quality assurance and/or student involvement;
● identify themselves as members of ESU’s QA Student Experts Pool;
● act as multiplier agents in their respective countries;
● promote the ESU’s QA Student Experts’ Pool;
● disseminate articles and other documents related to quality assurance among student experts in QA at the national and international level;
● inform the Pool about any quality assurance-related events at international level;
● give feedback on reports, ESU policy papers, or similar documents;
● provide feedback about reviews, pieces of training and conferences to the Steering Committee of ESU’s QA Student Experts Pool;
● enhance student participation in quality assurance in higher education;
● attend an introductory training organised for ESU’s QA Student Experts Pool members;
● contribute towards the preparation of meetings and training sessions and other different activities to benefit the Pool;
● contribute to ESU’s solidarity fund to cover administrative costs and support the sustainability of the QA Pool, in case of being remunerated as a consequence of their membership.
Selection:
In the selection process, an adequate balance of participants is ensured by country and region in the European Higher Education Area, study field, level of study and type of higher education, as well as a balance of participants of each gender, according to ESU’s Gender Mainstreaming Strategy.
Current members of the pool are invited to apply as well if they wish to continue their membership in the pool.
Criteria for Selection:
● Registered higher education student (at any level) or recently graduated (within 1 year) – only if continuing membership;
● Previous experience in various levels of quality assurance in higher education, especially participation in reviews or review-like activities;
● Demonstration of motivation to join the ESU QA Pool and contribute to promoting student participation in Quality Assurance of higher education;
● Experience in student representation;
● Excellent command of English;
● Experience in higher education policies,
● Students who are not employed by Quality Assurance agencies, by national/regional institutions related to quality assurance, are not part of the management of Higher Education Institutions, do not hold an academic position at HEIs (besides the teaching required within the PhD programmes), or any other position creating conflict of interest ).1
Looked upon favourably:
● Letter of support from Member NUSs;
● Certificates of participation in different QA-related events and educational activities, letters of recommendation from QA agencies or other institutions involved in QA;
● Membership in national QA Pools;
● Ability to work in languages other than English.
Documentation for submission2:
● Completed application form;
● Recent CV in the Europass format (maximum 5 pages);
● Proof of enrolment or recent graduation;
● Maximum 3 minutes video via Google drive, Youtube, etc. open access link giving us insights about your motivation to join the ESU QA Pool;
● Description of employment-studies relationship (only for PhD students) For any queries, you can reach us at qapoolsc@esu-online.org. Responsible persons for this call are Natalia Greniewska, Gaga Gvenetadze and Mick Scholtka on behalf of the Steering Committee of the ESU QA Pool, and Ana Gvritishvili and Horia Onita on behalf of the ESU Executive Committee.
1 Regarding this criteria, all students are asked to declare their employment status and their position at the University (in case of PhD students). Note that we will not accept any applications from those students who have dual roles: as students and full-time teaching staff members at higher education institutions. Please refer to the Annex to this call for further explanation.
2 See Annex to this call for further explanation.
Information sessions
For the applicants interested in getting more information regarding the responsibilities of QA Pool members one information session will be held on the 2nd of May, at 16:00-17:30 CEST. To join the information session please use the link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85138169914
Meeting ID: 851 3816 9914
A second information session will be held on the 13th of May, at 16:00-17:30 CEST. To join the information session please use the link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84184678833
Meeting ID: 841 8467 8833
Both sessions will contain the same information, so it is recommended to attend one of them if needed.
Announcement for selected candidates
For all those student experts that will be selected, an online welcome training session that is mandatory for the admission to the Pool will be held on the 27th of June, at 16:00-18:00 CEST. Further details will be provided to the selected applicants once the call is closed.
More information can be found on the call website.
If you have any questions, please reach out at qappolsc@esu-online.org