Introduction

European higher education (HE) has entered a major process of structural change related to the determination of its governments and universities to complete the creation of a coherent, compatible and competitive European HE area by the year 2010. This undertaking was first announced in the Sorbonne Declaration signed in May 1998 in Paris by four countries. It was confirmed one year later in the Bologna Declaration, which was signed by 30 countries who took the commitment to initiate national reforms in such a way that overall convergence should emerge at European level. Progress was reviewed, commitments were firmed-up and more specific priorities for action were set at the two follow-up ministerial meetings that took place in Prague in May 2001 (with 33 participating countries), and in Berlin in September 2003 (40 countries, now spanning the whole of Europe, including Turkey and Russia). The so-called ‘Bologna Process’ aims not only to enhance the cohesion and compatibility of HE systems within Europe and their attractiveness throughout the world, but in the EU it also has a strong link to the common European labour market.

Structural change

A new phase in the process of ‘growing together’ of European higher education

Modern European HE developed for a long time within the framework of national boundaries. This led to a patchwork of national systems developed in isolation from each other and characterised by marked differences in every respect (types of institutions, degree structure, tuition fees and grants, academic calendar, and so forth). Cooperation was restricted mainly to personal contacts between researchers and to a number of bilateral cultural agreements allowing for the mobility of a small number of students.

From the mid-1980s there came a new phase marked by large-scale mobility. It was triggered by an unexpected player, the EU, which at that time launched within a few years its ERASMUS, COMETT, LINGUA and TEMPUS programmes. With these programmes, which account for the exchange of over 100,000 students per year for recognised periods of study or internships abroad, European universities and other HE institutions and authorities have learnt how to deal with very different systems.