Quality consideration has been always part of higher education. What is new is the context and measures which are being used in order to deal with this challenge. In addition, more than ever before the quality concern has been internationalized. This new context brought about important initiatives. Naturally, the most important for the European context are those introduced under the agenda of the Bologna Process. The overall aim is the creation of the European Higher Education Area by the year 2010 but as it is mentioned in consecutive decisions adopted by the ministerial meetings of the participating countries [currently 46 countries are participating in the Bologna Process], the most important challenge today in Europe is the need for wide cooperation in order to develop regional and national standards and procedures for quality assurance combined with the will to safeguard the diversity of higher education systems.

There is also a growing interest of variety of stakeholders in quality dimension of higher education. One of the signs of this development is the emergence of various national, regional and international ranking and league tables^[1].

In the context of this growing attention to the quality and excellence movement in Europe Region and the increasing academic as well as political nature of the debate on quality, visible in the growth of assessment activities that are, directly or indirectly, linked to resource allocation. In this context, the Forum will distill potential useful ideas and good practices in promoting excellence in higher education and tackle issues of recent approaches and developments in quality assurance.