The Bologna Process - Towards the European Higher Education Area
The Bologna Process aims to create a European Higher Education Area by 2010, in which students can choose from a wide and transparent range of high quality courses and benefit from smooth recognition procedures. The Bologna Declaration of June 1999 has put in motion a series of reforms needed to make European Higher Education more compatible and comparable, more competitive and more attractive for Europeans and for students and scholars from other continents. Reform was needed then and reform is still needed today if Europe is to match the performance of the best performing systems in the world, notably the United States and Asia.
The three priorities of the Bologna process are: Introduction of the three cycle system (bachelor/master/doctorate), quality assurance and recognition of qualifications and periods of study.
Every second year, Ministers responsible for higher education in the 46 Bologna countries meet to measure progress and set priorities for action. After Bologna (1999), they met in Prague (2001), Berlin (2003) and Bergen (2005), London (2007) and Leuven/Louvain-La-Neuve, Belgium (April 2009).
Steered by European Ministers responsible for higher education, the Bologna process, is a collective effort of public authorities, universities, teachers and students, together with stakeholder associations, employers, quality assurance agencies, international organisations and institutions. Although the process goes beyond the EU’s borders, it is closely connected with EU policies and programmes. For the EU, the Bologna Process is part of a broader effort in the drive for a Europe of knowledge which includes:
- lifelong learning and development,
- the Lisbon Agenda for Growth and Jobs and Social Inclusion,
- the Copenhagen Process for enhanced European co-operation in Vocational Education and Training, and
- initiatives under the European Research Area.
The EU supports a broad range of measures to modernise the content and practices of higher education in the 27 Member States and the EU's 28 neighbouring countries, including with the support of the Lifelong Learning Programme (LLP), the Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance (IPA), the European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument (ENPI) and the Development Cooperation Instrument (DCI), the Tempus programme and the EU's programme for worldwide academic cooperation: Erasmus Mundus.
The EU also works to support the modernisation agenda of universities through the implementation of the 7th EU Framework Programme for Research (European Research Area) and the Competitiveness and Innovation Programme as well as the Structural Funds and loans from the European Investment Bank.
To establish synergies between the Bologna process and the Copenhagen process, which concerns vocational education and training, in co-operation with Member States, the Commission has established a European Qualifications Framework for lifelong learning (EQF). The EQF is linked to and supported by other initiatives in the fields of transparency of qualifications (Europass), credit transfer (the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System for higher education - ECTS - and the European Credit System for Vocational Education and Training - ECVET) and quality assurance (European association for quality assurance in higher education - ENQA - and the European Network for Quality Assurance in Vocational Education and Training - ENQA-AVET).
The Commission contributes to the Bologna Stocktaking exercise through country analyses as well as comparative overviews. A special Eurobarometer Survey, was completed in early 2009, which shows strong and encouraging support for modernisation among students in higher education, many of the student views echo the perspectives of teaching professionals in higher education, surveyed in May 2007.
To know more
The EU and the Bologna Process
- Commission Press Release "The Bologna Process - reforming universities in the next decade" (IP/09/615 on Rapid, 22 April 2009)
- Commission Memo "Frequently Asked Questions: the Bologna Process" (MEMO/09/170 on Rapid, 22 April 2009)
- Commission Memo "Higher Education in Europe 2009: Development in the Bologna Process" (MEMO/09/172 on Rapid, 22 April 2009)
- Report "Higher Education in Europe 2009: Developments in the Bologna Process", prepared by Eurydice, the information network on education in Europe, April 2009
- "The EU contribution to the Bologna Process", April 2009
Eurobarometer surveys on higher education in Europe
- 2007 Eurobarometer survey on higher education reform among teaching professionals [full text] [summary]
- Commission Press Release "How European students perceive Higher Education in Europe" (IP/09/618 on Rapid, 22 April 2009)
- Commission Memo "Survey asks students for their views on higher education in Europe" (MEMO/09/171 on Rapid, 22 April 2009)
