EUA’s input to forthcoming Bologna Process Ministerial Conference

Later this month (26-27 April), Ministers responsible for higher education from the 47 member countries of the Bologna Process will gather in Bucharest, Romania, for the latest Ministerial meeting. As a consultative member, EUA will participate on behalf of its members in the meeting, which will underline the importance of putting higher education at the centre of efforts to overcome the crisis and set goals for the further development of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) in the next years.
Since the last Ministerial meeting in Vienna (2010) and the launch of the EHEA, EUA has actively participated in the Bologna Follow-Up Group (BFUG) that has prepared the meeting in Bucharest. It has also contributed to the different BFUG working groups, particularly by providing data and information gathered from its members during its projects and thematic events on topics including lifelong learning, quality, transparency and the global rankings, mobility and employability.
In preparation for the meeting and the finalisation of the Bucharest Ministerial Communiqué, EUA has also prepared a position statement designed to underline universities’ priorities for consolidating the EHEA in the years to come and describe the action already taken by universities in the last years. The statement will be disseminated to Ministers and members of the delegations present in Bucharest.
The statement underlines the importance of sustainable public funding and enhanced autonomy for universities as key framework conditions for successful future action, while also pointing to the need to:

• enhance partnerships between governments and other stakeholders
• promote the concept of the “engaged university” (for example, with universities acting as motors of regional development, collaborating with a range of stakeholders and thus enhancing the employment prospects of both traditional students and lifelong learners)
• increase synergies between the European Higher Education and Research Areas (notably through the development of doctoral education)
• promote and increase the added value of mobility
• continue to build a “European higher education identity in the world”.

The statement also reminds Ministers that it is critical that the ‘ownership’ of the European Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance (ESG) in the EHEA remains with the stakeholders, and thus that ministers give a mandate to the E4 group (ENQA, ESU, EUA and EURASHE) to present proposals for the revision of the ESG. This should be done in full consultation with the broader stakeholder community and the representatives of the EHEA governments. The full EUA statement can be downloaded here.
The Ministerial Conference in Romania will once again be organised in conjunction with the Bologna Policy Forum, which seeks to intensify policy dialogue and cooperation with partners from outside of the EHEA (around 40 non-EHEA delegations are expected to attend). The theme of the third edition of the forum is "Beyond the Bologna process: Creating and connecting national, regional and global higher education spaces” and four parallel sessions will address: “Global academic mobility: Incentives and barriers, balances and imbalances”; “Global and regional approaches to quality enhancement of Higher Education”; “Public responsibility for and of HE within national and regional context”; and “The contribution of Higher Education reforms to enhancing graduate employability”.
More information on the Ministerial Conference is available here.