Holy See

  • European Higher Education Area - EHEA
image/svg+xml Map of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) Map of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) A blank map of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) and countries fully surrounded by the EHEA. Every country has an id which is its ISO-3116-1-ALPHA2 code in lower case. Members of the EU have a class="eu", all EHEA countries have a class="europe", non-EHEA countries have a class="nonehea". Image based on https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blank_map_of_Europe_(with_disputed_regions).svg by Júlio "Tintazul" Reis and Marian "maix" Sigler. Made by Colin Tück, EQAR, 2017 Released under CreativeCommons Attribution ShareAlike (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/).
  • Governmental membership
    Holy See is not a Governmental Member of EQAR.

    Map: EHEA countries by governmental membership

  • General information on higher education

    The Holy See’s higher education system fals into two broad categories:

    - Ecclesiastical Institutions (i.e. universities, faculties, athenaeums) that are governed by Apostolic Constitution “Sapientia Christiana” and the Code of Canon Law 807-821'. Freestanding ecclesiastical institutions have the power to confer academic degrees under authority of the Holy See.

    - Catholic Universities and Faculties that are governed by the Apostolic Constitution “Ex corde ecclesiae”. These institutions award degrees in accordance with the national laws and regulations in force in the countries in which they are placed.

    The body of the Holy See that is entrusted with the authority to govern and coordinate training and higher education is the Congregation for Catholic Education. 

    The establishment of Catholic Universities and Facultiesand is overseen by the Episcopal Conferences.

  • National external quality assurance requirements
    • Institutional and programme evaluation.

  • EHEA key commitment

    Partially aligned with the ESG

    A fully functioning quality assurance system is in operation nationwide but only some higher education institutions are subject to regular external quality assurance by an agency that has successfully demonstrated compliance with the ESG through registration on EQAR

  • Cross-border quality assurance

    Not recognising foreign agencies as part of the national external QA requirements

  • European Approach for Quality Assurance of Joint Programmes

    European Approach not available to higher education institutions

    • The European Approach is not available to higher education institutions in the country.

    Map: availability of the European Approach for QA of Joint Programmes


Registered agencies operating in Holy See

No registered agencies operating in Holy See.