Over the last few decades the higher education sector has undergone rapid changes and many of them have had a tremendous impact on the quality of teaching and learning, research and management of higher education. New quality assurance approaches are at the forefront of discussions including different types of stakeholders: governments, higher education institutions, quality assurance agencies, recognition bodies, students, employees, industry as well as the whole society itself. Rethinking the purpose and aim of higher education has led to new and alternative ways to assure the quality of the different higher education providers in terms of teaching, research and their administration. Within this complexity the significance and necessity of quality assurance evolves as basic underlying condition.

The aim of this study was to figure out challenges and developments within quality assurance in higher education concentrating on six national case studies: Austria, Germany, Finland, the United Kingdom, the United States of America and Canada. The selection of these countries is primarily concentrated on a sample of European countries - two German speaking countries, one Nordic country and the United Kingdom as leading European country concerning quality in research. These different European countries are considered in comparison to the forerunner in terms of accreditation, the United States, next to the highly diversified Canadian system. The following research question underlies this study:

What are the further developments of the respective higher education system and how will quality assurance emerge successfully in an international higher education area?

Starting from this open research question I highlighted transformation processes and trends of higher education referring to several known researchers and surveys of higher education. Different transformations of today’s higher education are prevailing such as the growth and diversification of higher education, the great emphasis of the market as well as the ongoing internationalisation processes. All these transitions procedures – massification, diversification, privatisation and internationalisation – affect the quality of higher education in certain ways. The primary focus was laid on quality assurance, main concepts in terms of a functioning quality assurance system, critical remarks on as well as the international dimension of quality assurance in higher education.

The empirical part investigates quality assurance policies of six OECD countries. These case studies shall exemplify the ongoing trends and changes along descriptive country reports and expert interviews. Next to national experts perspectives from international organisations and known researchers are gathered to gain a deeper insight in this complex field of research. The final comparison is made along three different levels:

1. a table with main findings of the descriptive reports of the country cases with the Key Actors and Elements of Six Quality Assurance Systems.
2. the categories of the expert interviews with national representatives emphasising on a comparative approach of these six country cases.
3. the theoretical framework with assumptions on the different concepts of massification, diversification, privatisation and internationalisation.

Based on these findings useful guidelines and recommendations for upcoming challenges of the observed higher education systems and beyond their borders are formulated.

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