The Bologna Process is an important process of harmonizing various systems of European higher education that has the objective to create a European Area of Higher Education and to promote the European system of higher education on a worldwide scale in order to increase its international competitiveness.
The Bologna Process is a process aimed at ensuring comparability in the standards and quality of higher-education qualifications that opened on 19 June 1999, when the ministers from 29 European countries met in Bologna to sign an important agreement, the Declaration of Bologna, which officially marked the start of this process.
The main objective of the Bologna Process is to create a European Higher Education Area and promote the European higher-education system around the world, to increase international competitiveness. To ensure the comparability of European university systems, the Bologna Declaration identified a number of main objectives, whose progress has been monitored and managed through a series of Ministerial Conferences, held between 1999 and 2018.
Achieved objectives and objectives still being pursued include:
- adopting a simple and easy to compare qualification systems, including by implementing the Diploma Supplement;
- adopting a system based on two main cycles, Level 1 and 2. To access the second cycle, students will have to complete the first cycle, which cannot be less than three years long;
- consolidating a system of credits – based on the ECTS system – that can be acquired also in different areas of discipline;
- promoting mobility (for students, teachers, researchers and technical and administrative staff), by removing the obstacles of free circulation;
- promoting European cooperation in reference to quality evaluation;
- promoting the importance of a European higher education area: development of study plans, cooperation between universities, mobility programmes, integrated study plans, training and research.
Today the Bologna Process has grown to comprise the much larger European Higher Education Area (EHEA). This now includes 48 European countries plus the European Commission and numerous consultative members and partners, representing public authorities, higher education institutions, associations, quality assurance agencies, international organizations and other relevant stakeholders.
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See also
- Ministerial Conferences (VEDI FILE 7 COOP_INT)