The student as customer, the lecturer as manager and the university as a company. Many academic institutions seem to move towards a more market-like situation. They compete for students on the basis of price, study duration and quality. In addition, they are more market- driven, involved with the acquisition of income and have to work increasingly efficient. Although this is still an issue of discussion, generally education is no longer seen as a 'merit good' or a 'civil right' but as a consumer asset (commodity) or investment (McVicar, 1996). In line with these developments, universities are increasingly expected to be accountable for the quality of their performances (Deem, 1998; Roberts, 2001). The society requires 'value for money' (Pounder, 1997). Evaluation, more specifically quality assessment can be seen as a means to accountability for shareholders (Wolff & Harris, 1994). Kells (1992) sees quality assessment as 'measuring the relative performance against expectations or normative behaviour (relative quality)' (p. 16).The movement towards one European system of quality assessment, which is 'stimulated' by the Bologna- declaration, meets national differences in languages, organisation of higher education institutions and other cultural and historical determined elements. Therefore, a comparison between systems of quality assessment in higher education across the borders of the different countries remains a very difficult case (Thune, 1998). In general, there is more interest for international comparison because educational policy has obtained more international features (OECD, 2002). In addition, policymakers are more aware of the strengths and weaknesses of their own educational system when making comparisons between different systems. Stakeholders can verify political statements on the basis of international comparative data. Purpose of this paper is consequently to present a review of quality assessment in European higher education which can be used as a tool for an international comparison between the quality assessment systems of several European countries. On the basis of literature research the following aspects could be distinguished:1. Input (resources)2. Process (ways of teaching)3. Output (throughput and effectiveness of graduates)4. Results (status graduates) This review will be further developed and elaborated in our forthcoming paper.