On April 7th several representatives of Disciplinary Qualification Agencies met in Madrid (in the aftermath of the INQAAHE conference) to discuss common interests. Disciplinary Qualification Agencies are agencies that accredit or evaluate on disciplinary basis, like EAPAA. That was the reason the EAPAA secretary-general was present at this meeting.

There has been an emphasis on the development of Learning Outcomes for the different disciplines, which has drawn some attention. Nevertheless, many of these professional fields are operating in isolation and they may need to work more closely together if they wish to be noticed by the outside world. It was suggested to try to have an input from this group of specialized accreditors to the Bologna
ministerial conference of 2012 in Bucharest as a agenda point.

The next step might be the development of a statement of shared values, and a list of professional accreditors will be published on the INQAAHE website.

Further issues to discuss in the future are:

1. The field specific/professional accrediting QA agencies need to become organized in terms of scheduling meetings and determining necessary actions.
2. More agencies need to be involved so that we can gain a clear picture of the professions and disciplines that might be represented.
3. There needs to be an identification of the needs and interests of specialized accreditors such as a) issues of professional mobility (and finally mutual recognition) b). benchmarking, and/or c) ways to collaborate with other national and international agencies.