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Recent research indicates that mutual respect, strong working relationships and common aims can play a key role in ensuring the success of inter-agency initiatives in the area of education and promotion of young people's sexual health. It is vital to adopt a strategic approach which also guarantees the full commitment of participating employees. The research shows that the best approach is one which gradually creates strong relationships from a strong incentive to collaboration.

There is growing international concern to regulate and assure standards in higher education. External peer review of assessment, often called external examining, is a well-established approach to assuring standards. Australian higher education is one of several systems without a history of external examining for undergraduate programmes that is currently considering the approach. What can entrants to external examining at that level learn from the UK higher education system's long history of external examining? To that end, this paper reports on a mixed methods research project designed to investigate current practices in how academic standards are conceived, constructed and applied by external examiners and debates the implications of the findings for the development of external examining in other countries. The findings suggest that the potential of experienced peers in a subject discipline to provide the assurance of standards is limited. It concludes by presenting various possible enhancements that might be considered.