Is the Magna Charta Universitatum still relevant?

By Lee Adendorff. More than 110 academics and university administrators met in Bologna, Italy, on 21 September for the 24th anniversary conference of the Magna Charta Universitatum – a declaration on fundamental university principles that has now been signed by some 750 universities worldwide.
Anna Glass, secretary general of the think-tank, monitoring body and signatories association Magna Charta Universitatum Observatory, said the aim of this year’s conference was to “open up a conversation” – “a kind of old-fashioned Twitter to see what is trending…and to see if an addendum should be added to the Magna Charta to reflect today’s context”.
Although it originated in Bologna in the late 1980s, as Europe moved towards a common government and currency, the Magna Charta Universitatum is distinct from the Bologna process – a movement with which it is often associated. The Bologna process is a continuing project to make university standards comparable across Europe through the development of a common European Higher Education Area, while the Magna Charta Universitatum is a two-page declaration defining key philosophical principles underpinning the existence of universities – notably, academic freedom and institutional autonomy.