EURASHE’s 2016 work plan is built around 4 strategic priorities: Mission of professional higher education (PHE), Excellence, Employability and Lifelong Learning and Research, Development and Innovation in PHE. Each of the strategic priorities is developed through focus areas which make up the activities of this work plan. Based on the nature of these activities, they are developed as Research & development (researching in the field, producing studies, collecting good practices), Policy & advocacy (developing policies, advocating and influencing a wide range of stakeholders) and Training & capacity building (disseminating outcomes of our work, training higher education (HE) experts). In the field of the Mission of PHE, a large online platform will be created, gathering best practices from various projects, events and publications, supporting HE institutions in learning from others to develop their programmes, capacities and improve functioning (Act1). Permeability between HE and VET is a growing issue, and EURASHE will prepare an workshop on developing tools and methodologies for overcoming barriers in this permeability. An implementation action plan will support institutions in this process (Act3). In order to facilitate the integration of migrants and refugees into the educational and socio-economic environment of host countries, EURASHE will organise a workshop focusing on access (Act4). In the field of Excellence, the outcomes of the PHExcel project will be used to establish a pool of experts that will support institutions in their strive for excellence (Act5). As the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the EHEA have been adopted in 2015, EURASHE will play a crucial role in dissemination and training of HE institutions through workshops organised during planned EURASHE events (Act6). After the earlier success of the first edition of ‘A Manual for Internal Quality Assurance in Higher Education’, EURASHE will support the 2nd edition including recent developments in quality assurance, and start the process of translation of the Manual into French (Act7).Employability will be addressed through a Committee for Strategic Advice that will bring together business sector, students, civil society representatives and EURASHE bodies in order to specifically consult in 2016 on development of training scenarios for successful transition to labour market (Act9). Our Annual Conference will address the issue of modes of cooperation between HE and the world of work and will bring to Serbia around 200 participants (Act10). EURASHE continues to support the European Alliance for Apprenticeships, and will focus on developing support mechanisms for SMEs in acquiring quality internships (Act11). In the field of Research, Development and Innovation, we will address the issue of professional PhDs, mapping the current situation in Europe and examining development possibilities, as a basis for future advocacy work (Act12). EURASHE will promote the role of applied research in regional development and look into good practices possibly leading to a project initiative (Act13). The annual autumn seminar in Spain will discuss the engagement of students in applied research (Act14).Additionally, the work plan includes the Workshop on Modernisation, which is the main event for strategy development of the organisation (Act16), next to statutory bodies that are responsible for decision making and carrying out the activities of the work plan (Act16)