ENIC-NARIC: Strengthening academic mobility and information exchange

ENIC/NARIC serve as key implementation mechanisms of the Lisbon Recognition Convention for the European region, facilitating the exchange of information and qualifications between countries at the regional level. 

Through a series of workshops and plenary sessions, national information centres from 56 countries had the chance to delve deeper into some of the most pressing issues for the region, such artificial intelligence and recognition, academic fraud, the recognition of refugee qualifications and transnational education. The latter two also feature prominently on the interim work programme of the Global Convention on the Recognition of Qualification concerning Higher Education, offering room for synergies. 

Also high on the agenda was cooperation with other UNESCO regional networks of information centres, namely in Africa, Asia-Pacific and Latin America and the Caribbean. In Latin America and the Caribbean, for example, the CINALC network of information centres launched in February 2024 and has already drawn inspiration from ENIC-NARIC, such as through conducting a feasibility study for the implementation of the Diploma Supplement in the region.

The four different regional networks bring together more than 100 education systems and serve as the operational arms of the regional recognition conventions by helping promote cooperation and mutual trust between education systems. In a way, they serve as the basis for a common global higher education architecture and eventual global network of national implementation structures to be established under the Global Convention (read more here).

UNESCO organizes regular exchanges among their presidents, the latest of which took place during the European Higher Education Area Ministerial Meeting in Tirana, Albania in May 2024. 

• More about the regional recognition conventions
• More about the Global Convention on the Recognition of Qualifications concerning Higher Education
• More about ENIC-NARIC