Quality assurance has been at the core of the construction of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) since the very beginning serving as a tool for trust, which enables comparability of degrees Europe-wide and will foster the societies by increasing mobility. The European Students Union (ESU) launched the "QUEST for quality for students" project in 2010. The QUEST project aims to identify students' genuine perception of what higher education quality is from a pan-European perspective. ESU seeks to define a concept of quality that gives a better answer to the learner-centred high quality model of higher education students in Europe. This idea of a student quality concept can bring change in the field of quality in terms of transcending the discussion surrounding quality assurance and information provision to reflect the views of students as the main benefactors rather than simply as other actors. The main innovation of the project, being pan-European survey of student opinion, will definitely change perceptions of policy makers and contribute strongly to building a common European Higher Education Area by promoting availability of new modes of information and more evidence based policy making. This publication presents the data collected through the first stage of the project research, which consisted of desk research, a survey among ESU's members, national site visits and focus group exercise focusing on the barriers towards student participation in QA processes. It outlines the main political and conceptual developments in quality assurance on national and European level in recent decades with a view to increasing student involvement within these processes. On the basis of the data compiled through the desk research, three countries were selected. The three site-visit reports focus on the national level, conducted to validate the information collected through the desk research. They are presented in this publication, together with two case studies delivered by ESU's project partners, for the purpose of outlining good and interesting practice examples of where students are in the centre of quality enhancement and assurance. Appended are: (1) Methodology for Site Visits; (2) Site Visit--Finland; (3) Site Visit--Spain; (4) Site Visit--The Netherlands; (5) Case Study--Scotland; (6) Case Study--Germany; and (7) Focus Group Report. (Contains 3 figures and 22 footnotes.)