The Bologna Process

The objective of the Bologna Process is to establish a European Higher Education Area by 2010, in order to improve the recognition of qualifications and to facilitate greater mobility of students, graduates and holders of qualifications within Europe. This publication is based on presentations given at a seminar, held in Riga, Latvia in December 2004, and it reviews developments in recognition policies up to May 2005. Issues discussed include: the impact of emerging qualifications frameworks on recognition, recognition and quality assurance, learning outcomes, credit transfer, recognition and the labour market, transborder education and recognition issues outside the European Higher Education Area.

This book outlines the development of the Bologna Process, reviewing how it came into existence and the milestones reached over the past decade. It provides a critical examination of the state of implementation of its main policy action lines - such as comparable degree structures and quality assurance systems - and assesses its impact in fostering greater student mobility, widening participation in higher education, and developing lifelong learning. The impact of the Bologna Process as a driver of reform is set against challenges in implementing agreed goals. And the authors point to the diversity of results across the 47 signatory countries, highlighting problems with the use of instruments at the institutional level. The book also discusses how the Bologna Process has become a focus of attention for higher education policy-making around the world, presenting examples of the policy initiatives it has inspired. Finally, it considers the lessons to be learned from this European experience, and the challenges to be met in the future.

In March 2010, the European Higher Education Area was officially launched, proclaiming the culmination of a ten-year timeframe projected at Bologna in 1999, when the education ministers of 29 European states signed a declaration that would fundamentally influence the future of their higher education systems. Forty-seven countries, including all EU Member States and other countries as far afield as Kazakhstan, now take part in the so-called 'Bologna Process'. Remarkably, this vast enterprise, which has led to rapid and sweeping changes in almost all higher education systems in Europe, has taken place outside the framework of the European Union and the Council of Europe. In fact, as this important legal analysis shows, it appears that with the Bologna Process the Member States have tried to sidestep the EU's growing influence on higher education. Although the Bologna Process has generated an impressive literature addressing what it might mean, where it suddenly came from, and how it has become so powerful, until now the legal implications of the process, and its tense relationship with EU law, have been left almost entirely unexamined. This work fills that gap. Among the often controversial issues raised are the following: ; avoidance of the democratically legitimate procedures of the EU's institutional framework for cultural reasons connected with state sovereignty; the scope of EU legal competence for various kinds of activities in the educational sector; specific areas of overlap between EU law and the Bologna Process and their implications; voluntary intergovernmental cooperation as a paradigmatic global shift of internationalization policies in education; the idea that the university is being redefined, from a social institution to an industry; the increasingly influential role in the process, by means of funding and coordination, of the European Commission; financial support programmes and devices to enhance credit and degree recognition; students as recipients of services; and teachers and the free movement of workers. The author describes how the scope of the Bologna Process was significantly broadened during a series of meetings during the decade, analyses the relevance of the case law of the European Court of Justice and provides a detailed description of the adoption of the process into the national laws of France, Germany and the United Kingdom. A concluding normative assessment scrutinizes the process on the basis of democracy, transparency and accountability. As the first study of the legitimacy of Bologna from a European law perspective - and by extension of the 'Europeanization' of higher education, including the role of the EU, EU law, and law in general - this is a critically important contribution to a contentious debate that clearly holds great significance for the future of law and society. Educators and education policymakers are sure to read and study it with interest.

Romania hosts the 2012 Bologna / European Higher Education Area Ministerial Conference and the Third Bologna Policy Forum. In preparation for these meetings, The Executive Agency for Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation Funding (UEFISCDI) organised the Future of Higher Education - Bologna Process Researchers’ Conference (FOHE-BPRC) in Bucharest on 17-19 October 2011, with the support of the European University Association (EUA) and the Romanian National Committee for UNESCO. The conference brought the voices of researchers into international-level policy making in higher education. The results of the conference are presented in this book. Until now, empirical evidence supporting policies and reforms in higher education has often been a matter of local or regional focus. The development of a pan-European process in higher education policy drives a need to explore wider research topics on which to base policies. This book offers an unprecedented opportunity for higher education researchers to interact and contribute to the political process shaping the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), and to national policy agendas in more than 100 participant countries for the 2012 ministerial events. The book collects more than 50 articles focusing on vital issues in European higher education. These are arranged in sections addressing the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) Principles; Teaching and Learning; Quality Assurance; Mobility; Higher Education Governance in the EHEA; Funding of Higher Education; Diversification of Higher Education Missions; Higher Education Futures and Foresight.

This book critically reflects on the international function of the Bologna Process by exploring motivations and interests behind its 'global strategy' as well as how the reforms have been perceived and applied beyond Europe.This book was originally published as a special issue of the European Journal of Higher Education.

Towards a Pedagogy of Higher Education illustrates how international policy shifts, primarily the Bologna-process, have affected debates around both the purpose and organization of higher education at different levels. This book formulates a theory of teaching in higher education that is grounded in educational theory, contributing to a critical perspective on current ideal forms of higher education and a deeper understanding of the pedagogical role of the university. It illustrates how international policies affect conceptualizations of the purpose of higher education and critically examines the pedagogy of higher education in order to develop a comprehensive educational theory for teaching in higher education. The book illustrates the consequences of discursive ideals of education on teaching practices and provides a theoretical framework for new thinking on higher education. Offering a unique contribution that combines policy analyses, curriculum theory, and educational theory, this book will appeal to academics, scholars, and postgraduate students in the field of higher education research and teaching, educational theory, and educational policy.

This book offers an empirical and theoretical account of the mode of governance that characterizes the Bologna Process. In addition, it shows how the reform materializes and is translated in everyday working life among professors and managers in higher education. It examines the so-called Open Method of Coordination as a powerful actor that uses “soft governance” to advance transnational standards in higher education. The book shows how these standards no longer serve as tools for what were once human organizational, national or international, regulators. Instead, the standards have become regulators themselves – the faceless masters of higher education. By exploring this, the book reveals the close connections between the Bologna Process and the EU regarding regulative and monitoring techniques such as standardizations and comparisons, which are carried out through the Open Method of Coordination. It suggests that the Bologna Process works as a subtle means to circumvent the EU’s subsidiarity principle, making it possible to accomplish a European governance of higher education despite the fact that education falls outside EU’s legislative reach. The book’s research interest in translation processes, agency and power relations among policy actors positions it in studies on policy transfer, policy borrowing and globalization. However, different from conventional approaches, this study draws on additional interpretive frameworks such as new materialism.

This volume presents the major outcomes of the third edition of the Future of Higher Education – Bologna Process Researchers Conference (FOHE-BPRC 3) which was held on 27-29 November 2017. It acknowledges the importance of a continued dialogue between researchers and decision-makers and benefits from the experience already acquired, this way enabling the higher education community to bring its input into the 2018-2020 European Higher Education Area (EHEA) priorities. The Future of Higher Education – Bologna Process Researchers Conference (FOHE-BPRC) has already established itself as a landmark in the European higher education environment. The two previous editions (17-19 October 2011, 24-26 November 2014), with approximately 200 European and international participants each, covering more than 50 countries each, were organized prior to the Ministerial Conferences, thus encouraging a consistent dialogue between researchers and policy makers. The main conclusions of the FOHE Conferences were presented at the EHEA Ministerial Conferences (2012 and 2015), in order to make the voice of researchers better heard by European policy and decision makers. This volume is dedicated to continuing the collection of evidence and research-based policymaking and further narrowing the gap between policy and research within the EHEA and broader global contexts. It aims to identify the research areas that require more attention prior to the anniversary 2020 EHEA Ministerial Conference, with an emphasis on the new issues on rise in the academic and educational community. This book gives a platform for discussion on key issues between researchers, various direct higher education actors, decision-makers, and the wider public. This book is published under an open access CC BY license.