Quality assurance expert says European degree label is shaping up to be a quality label

The EU's European Degree Label is being designed as a quality label, but there are unanswered questions about who would award it, according to a senior accreditation expert working on quality assurance of European Universities alliances.

Mark Frederiks, Coordinator for International Policy at the Accreditation Organisation of the Netherlands, Flanders and Luxembourg (NVAO), told News Tank Academic in an interview on 25/01/2026: "My impression is that it is being conceived as a quality label. But then the question is: what does that mean in practice? Who would award it?"

Frederiks is a member of one of the two expert groups within the Policy Lab, established by the EU's Education Ministers to develop a comprehensive framework for the joint European degree label and the feasibility of developing a quality assurance framework at the European Universities Alliance level.

He said that if it were a quality label, it was likely to be awarded by quality assurance (QA) agencies, based on agreed criteria. As they require an assessment of direct interaction with stakeholders, assurance…