There is a growing interest in understanding and evidencing quality WIL practice across higher education institutions. Despite this increasing focus there is limited evidence of shared institutional wide approaches to defining attributes of quality, establishing benchmarks of WIL in practice (i.e. the enacted WIL curriculum), and implementing a shared evidence-based approach to assuring quality in WIL. This paper presents the underpinning rationale for a quality assurance framework for WIL practice developed through a research project which engaged participants from across the Australian higher education context. The project had three phases: review, exploration and benchmarking; to develop a comprehensive framework representing the dynamic and complex practice space of WIL within higher education institutions. This paper highlights key outcomes from each phase and how these have informed the content and usability of the proposed quality assurance framework, thus providing a robust, evidence-based and comprehensive instrument for the quality assurance of WIL across an institution.