Remember how far you’ve come, not how far you have to go. You are not where you want to be, but neither are you where you used to be. Rick Warren

Ministers of higher education come together online this week (19 November) to reflect on the state of European higher education. With the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, it feels like we have reached a critical point, with major challenges to face in the next decade: How can higher education best play its role in addressing climate change and sustainable development? How should the sector embrace digital education? And how should the higher education community respond to threats to academic freedom and institutional autonomy that are occurring with increasing frequency? These are all pressing issues, but it’s worth pausing for breath to recognise the achievements of the previous two decades that make it possible to tackle them.

The past twenty years has been a tricky period, with many challenges to the European project. Yet during this period higher education systems across Europe have made enormous progress in following convergent and coherent reforms. The 2020 edition of the Bologna Process Implementation Report outlines how higher education systems have harmonised degree structures, put in place quality assurance and shifted away from teacher to learner-centred higher education. And beyond this, one of the biggest achievements is overlooked: that 48 vastly different countries, some of whom may be in actual or recent conflict with each other, come together regularly to agree key priorities and commit to long-term policy objectives. 

The Bologna Process was born from a collective realisation that European higher education systems had to adapt to a fast-changing world. Demand from students was increasing while society also required higher education institutions to do more: broaden teaching to include a wider cross-section of society, engage in relevant research, and deliver an increasing range of services to society. 

Today there are over 38 million students enrolled in the 48 Bologna countries. This is an increase of around 18 million in 20 years, and an indication of just how rapid the process of massification in higher education has been. When the Bologna Declaration was signed in 1999, countries each had their own degree systems and programmes that may have made sense to them, but were difficult to understand from outside, and studying abroad was an aspiration for only a very small elite. All this has changed radically.

The Bologna Process is a unique construction. It involves the European Commission, national governments, representative organisations of higher education institutions and students and other international stakeholder organisations. It is self-governed and has no legal powers. Instead it relies on meetings, reports and peer pressure to advance. To be honest, it is unlikely that anyone today would invent such a model for international cooperation and reform. Yet there is no denying that it has overseen significant changes. How has this been achieved?

A panoply of tools has been developed by and for countries, higher education institutions, staff and students (ECTS credits, Diploma Supplement, Qualifications Frameworks). Targets have been set and comparative evaluation undertaken, while peer learning activities and projects have supported collective learning. 

Over time, policy discussion has become better nourished by information and evidence, including statistical data from Eurostat, qualitative information gathered through the Eurydice network, and survey data collected through a wide range of organisations and projects. The European Commission, coordinating these major actions and initiatives, has become a sophisticated knowledge hub for higher education policy, able to provide advice to member states on the basis of credible information and data. Similarly higher education institutions, staff and students are guided by key European stakeholder organisations that gather and share experience and expertise. On their side, countries engage with European processes not only through committees and decision-making structures but also through participating in peer learning activities and providing proposals for European action and cooperation.

Higher education policy-making has thus developed through increasing trust and cooperation between the European Commission, stakeholder organisations and member states. 

At a time when the European project is questioned and threatened from many sides, it is heartening to observe that progress can be made not through top-down decision-making and legislation but through learning and trust-building. Few in the higher education sector would contest that working with a community of stakeholders across national barriers represents the best chance for Europe and the rest of the world to navigate the difficult waters ahead. It can only be hoped that we will learn this lesson  from 20 years of the Bologna Process.

Author: David Crosier