The EUR-ACE project (2004/06) formulated Standards for the accreditation of HigherEducation Programmes in Engineering and devised a system in which a commonEuropean quality label (the EUR-ACE label) is added to the accreditation awarded by anational Agency. So far, six Agencies have been authorized to award the EUR-ACElabel under the supervision of ENAEE, the European Network for Accreditation ofEngineering Education; thus, in 2007/08 the EUR-ACE system has been implemented insix countries (France, Germany, Ireland, Portugal, Russia, UK) that, although asignificant and varied sample, are only about 1/5 of the 31 LLP countries (and 1/7 of the44 EHEA countries).The EUR-ACE SPREAD project is aimed at spreading the EUR-ACE system into othercountries, starting systematically with Italy, Turkey, Lithuania, Romania, andSwitzerland, where a “national” partner of the project consortium will promote, with thesupport of the whole project, either of two basic alternatives:a) if in the concerned country an already operating Accrediting Agency is identified, itwill check its procedures vs. the EUR-ACE Standards andthen seek to be authorized to award the EUR-ACE label;b) otherwise, EUR-ACE labels will be initially awarded by an Agency already in thesystem: the project will on the one side promote applications to obtain the label fromHigher Education Institutions, and on the other facilitate the establishment of a nationalAgency, if possible already during the lifetime of the project.The Europe-wide Associations partners of the consortium, will help the national partnersand also try to spread the EUR-ACE system to further countries, following Alternative b).In the meantime, the EUR-ACE Standards will be updated: in particular, explicitprovisions will be elaborated and included to facilitate lifelong learning and allowaccreditation of continuing education programmes.