Formation Continue du Supérieur

Every two or three years there are Ministerial Conferences organised in order to assess the progress made within the EHEA and to decide on the new steps to be taken.

Ministers decide at Ministerial Conferences about the central aspects of the EHEA, including its further developments and commitments by its member countries. The Ministerial Conference also decides on new applications for membership to the EHEA as well as any other main changes to the process.

A communiqué is adopted at each Ministerial Conference that outlines decisions taken by the Ministers.

• 1999 Bologna Declaration - English
• 2001 Prague Communiqué - English
• 2003 Berlin Communique - English
• 2005 Bergen Communique - English
• 2007 London Communiqué - English
• 2009 Leuven Louvain-la-Neuve Communiqué - English
• 2010 Budapest-Vienna Declaration
• 2012 Bucharest Communiqué
• 2015 Yerevan Communiqué

Ministerial Declarations and Communiqués in all available languages

The Ministerial Conferences are prepared by the Bologna Follow-Up Group (BFUG). More...

The Yerevan Ministerial Conference took place on 14-15 May 2015.
The Ministers welcome Belarus as the 48th member of the EHEA and look forward to working with the national authorities and stakeholders to implement the reforms identified by the BFUG and included in the agreed road map attached to Belarusian accession. Ministers ask the BFUG to report on the implementation of the roadmap in time for the 2018 ministerial conference.
Several policy measures were adopted during the Conference:

• the revised Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area (ESG);
• the European Approach for Quality Assurance of Joint Programmes;
• the revised ECTS Users’ Guide, as an official EHEA document.

The Yerevan Communiqué recognize that the vision of Bologna inspired successfully the European Higher Education Area. Nonetheless, continuing improvement of the higher education systems and greater involvement of academic communities are necessary to achieve the full potential of the EHEA.

By 2020 the members are determined to achieve an EHEA where the common goals are implemented in all member countries:

• Enhancing the quality and relevance of learning and teaching;
• Fostering the employability of graduates throughout their working lives;
• Making the systems more inclusive;
• Implementing agreed structural reforms. More...

The main message of the Bucharest Ministerial Conference, which took place on 26 - 27 April 2012 and was attended by 47 European ministers responsible for higher education, states that Higher education reform can help to get Europe back on track and generate sustainable growth and jobs.
The Ministers agreed to focus on three main goals in the face of the economic crisis: to provide quality higher education to more students, to better equip students with employable skills, and to increase student mobility. More...

In March 2010, with the Budapest-Vienna Ministerial Conference, the EHEA has been expanded to 47 countries, the most recently admitted being Kazakhstan.
The Budapest/Vienna Conference was the Anniversary Conference, celebrating a decade of the Bologna Process. With this occasion, there took place the official launching of the European Higher Education Area, which meant that, in terms of a common European framework for HE, the objective set in the Bologna Declaration was accomplished. More...

In the Leuven/Louvain-la-Neuve Communiqué, of 2009, the main working areas for the next decade were set, with emphasis on: social dimension, lifelong learning, employability, student centred learning and the teaching mission of education, international openness, mobility, education, research & innovation, as well as data collection, funding of the HE and multidimensional transparency tools. These main working areas show a new orientation of the Bologna Process, towards a more in-depth approach of the reforms, thus ensuring the completion of the Bologna Process implementation. Another change, in terms of internal arrangements, referred to the Bologna Process Chairing procedure: from a previous situation where the Bologna Process had been chaired by the country holding the EU Presidency, to a situation according to which the Process is being chaired by two countries: both the country holding the EU Presidency and a non-EU country, named in alphabetical order, starting from July 1st, 2010. More...

With the London Communiqué, of 2007, the number of participating countries was enlarged to 46. This Communiqué focused on evaluating the progress achieved by that time, concerning mobility, degree structure, recognition, qualifications frameworks (both overarching and national), lifelong learning, quality assurance, social dimension, and also set the priorities for 2009, these being, mainly, mobility, social dimension, which was defined here for the first time, data collection, employability, EHEA in a global context and stock taking. For 2010 and beyond, it was stressed that there is the need for further collaboration, seeing it as an opportunity to reformulate the visions and values. More...

The Bergen Communiqué, of 2005, underlined the importance of partnerships, including stakeholders – students, HEIs, academic staff and employers, together with the further enhancing of research, especially with regard to the third cycle – doctoral programmes. Also, this Communiqué stressed the ministers’ will to provide a more accessible higher education, together with an increased attractiveness of the EHEA to other parts of the world. More...

The following Ministerial Conference took place in Berlin, in 2003, thus the Berlin Communiqué enlarging the number of countries to 40 members. The main provisions of this Communiqué dealt with an expansion of the objectives, in terms of promotion of linking European Higher Education Area to European Research Area, as well as the promotion of quality assurance. Another important aspect that the Berlin Communiqué stated referred to establishing the follow-up structures supporting the process in-between two Ministerial meetings. This arrangement established the Bologna Follow-up Group, the Board and the Bologna Secretariat. More...

With the Prague Communiqué, in 2001, the number of member countries was enlarged to 33, and there has also taken place an expansion of the objectives, in terms of lifelong learning, involving students as active partners and enhancing the attractiveness and competitiveness of the European Higher Education Area. Also, the participating ministers committed themselves to ensure the further development of quality assurance and development of national qualification frameworks. This objective was correlated with the lifelong learning one, as it is considered an important element of higher education that must be taken into consideration when building up new systems. Also, it is important to mention that the topic of social dimension was first introduced in the Prague Communiqué. More...

The aims of the Sorbonne Declaration were confirmed in 1999, through the Bologna Declaration, where 29-30 countries expressed their willingness to commit to enhance the competitiveness of the European Higher Education Area, emphasising the need to further the independence and autonomy of all Higher Education Institutions. All the provisions of the Bologna Declaration were set as measures of a voluntary harmonisation process, not as clauses of a binding contract. More...