Update on developments in the Bologna Process

Last year’s Bologna Process Ministerial Conference in Romania, and the resulting Communiqué, set out a number of goals with regard to the future development of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA).
Underlining the importance of investment in higher education, the Bucharest Communiqué stresses the need to provide high quality higher education for all, to enhance graduates' employability and to strengthen mobility as a means for better learning. A new strategy on mobility “Mobility for better learning” was also adopted. These were amongst the topics addressed in EUA’s input statement to the Ministerial Conference, which outlined universities’ priorities for the future of the EHEA.
EUA is an official consultative member of the Bologna Process, and participates actively in the ministerial conferences as well as in the Bologna Follow Up Group (BFUG), which between the ministerial meetings follow up on the commitments agreed in the Communiqué and also assess the progress made. After the Bucharest conference, the Bologna Secretariat is now with Armenia, which provides support for the process, and will also host the next Ministerial Meeting in Yerevan, in 2015. In the past, the work of the BFUG has been organised in a wider range of parallel thematic working groups and networks, which all published their own reports. In this regards the “Bologna Implementation Report”, launched at the last ministerial meeting, was a new departure, as it analysed and aggregated results from all working groups.
In the current round from 2012 to 2015, a much more structured approach is already taken in the organisation of the work, with four major working groups:

• Reporting on the implementation of the Bologna Process – which will prepare the next implementation report for 2015
• Structural reforms (Qualifications frameworks, recognition, quality assurance and transparency)
• Mobility and internationalisation
• Social dimension and lifelong learning

This approach has been chosen, both to ensure that certain issues are not developed in isolation, but rather linked to each other (e.g. the interrelation between quality assurance, qualifications frameworks and recognition), and also to coordinate sub-working groups and task forces, which focus on more specific aspects, and feed into the working groups. The BFUG recently met in Dublin on 14-15 March to endorse the Bologna Work Programme for 2012-2015. The Work Programme states a stronger focus on implementing agreed Action Lines and sharing good practice on areas such as widening access, student-centred learning, employability, recognition practices and developing qualifications frameworks, based on learning outcomes.
EUA contributes to all the working groups and most of the sub-working groups. In addition, European Ministers at the 2012 conference have mandated EUA together with the other members of the E4 group ENQA, ESU and EURASHE, in close cooperation with Education International, BUSINESSEUROPE and the European Quality Assurance Register for Higher Education (EQAR) to prepare an initial proposal for a revision of the European Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance (following the MAP-ESG project). A summary of the recent meetings of the different workings groups can be found on the EHEA website.
Meanwhile, EUA continues to also monitor the related HE developments within the European Union, which are not part of the Bologna agenda, but often linked, such as the recognition of professional qualifications. The latest update on European-level developments regarding the EC Directive 2005/36/EC on the recognition of professional qualifications and related issues is now available on the EUA website.