EUA's Maria Kelo: Quality assurance's "tiny contributions" can have an impact on global problems

Quality assurance has a role to play in helping institutions facing the challenges of the higher education sector, according to Maria Kelo, Director of Institutional Development at the European University Association, in charge of quality assurance.

"Quality assurance can give tiny contributions to global higher education problems, and from tiny contributions, we can get to some kind of impact. So let's not forget our tiny role," she said in an interview with News Tank on 13/11/2025, on the sidelines of the European Quality Assurance Forum (EQAF), which took place at Corvinus University in Budapest from 12/11 to 14/11/2025.

"EQAF can be an opportunity to regain hope and see that together we can do it. We can still maintain belief in humanity, higher education and our values. We have to remind ourselves that this is a wave that will turn or that we can resist and maintain our integrity and identity despite being pushed and pulled in different directions by external factors," she stated.

She represented the EUA at EQAF in the E4 group, gathering the main stakeholder organisations of…