Assuring quality of teaching and learning activities is the quintessential task that higher education institutions (HEIs) must face in an increasingly competitive national and international environment. Adoption of the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area (ESG) in 2005 has added new momentum to research in the quality assurance policy domain. So far, the corresponding research has centred on national (quality assurance agencies), not institutional level, and lacked the outreach to secondary education as well as the theoretical base. The project aims to fill in this gap in theoretical and empirical knowledge by: (i) identifying barriers to the ESG implementation at institutional level (i.e. ESG Part 1) and giving relevant recommendations for the ESG Part 1 modification; (ii) identifying the extent to which the ESG Part 1 implementation impacts on the interrelationship between the secondary and higher education sector. The fulfilment of the aims is to be based on the theory of the implementation deficit and will be done by the research on a sample of 28 HEIs in 6 European countries and the following comparative analysis. Four kinds of outputs will be produced during the project execution: a. 28 institutional case studies (national languages plus English); b. 8 comparative analyses including the impact of the ESG Part 1 on secondary education (English); c. 1 book summarizing the project outcomes (English); d. 1 final synthesis report including the relevant recommendations (English). These project outputs will aid in informed policy-making in the quality assurance domain, with respect to facilitation of the implementation of the ESG Part 1 in particular, i.e. ENQA (and partners), management of HEIs, chairs of secondary schools, ministries of education, interested higher education research community.