Shifting grounds: Discourses on quality in digital higher education within the EHEA

This paper reconstructs how the concept of quality in digital higher education has shifted within the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) between 1999 and 2024. Drawing on the Sociology of Knowledge Approach to Discourse and Bourdieu's field theory, five discourse phases are identified, tracing a shift from standardisation through governance to epistemic responsibility in the AI age. The analysis reveals a distinctive European quality logic that differs from OECD and UNESCO discourses. Digital sovereignty is reconstructed as an emergent quality category. The paper concludes with implications for higher education governance in the DACH region.