Bologna Process

The Bologna Process is an intergovernmental initiative which aims to create a European Higher Education Area (EHEA) by 2010 and to promote the European system of higher education worldwide. It now has 46 participating countries and it is conducted outside the formal decision-making framework of the European Union. Decision-making within the Process rests on the consent of all the participating countries.

It was launched in 1999 when Ministers from 29 European countries, including the UK, met in Bologna and signed a declaration establishing what was necessary to create a EHEA by the end of the decade. The broad objectives of the Bologna Process became: to remove the obstacles to student mobility across Europe; to enhance the attractiveness of European higher education worldwide; to establish a common structure of higher education systems across Europe, and; for this common structure to be based on two main cycles, undergraduate and graduate.

In its drive to improve the quality of higher education and, in turn, human resources across Europe, the Bologna Process will play a key role in contributing to the EU’s Lisbon Strategy goals which aim to deliver stronger, lasting growth and to create more and better jobs.

Since 1999 Ministers have met four times to assess progress towards the creation of the EHEA – in Prague in 2001, in Berlin in 2003 and in Bergen in 2005. The UK hosted the ministerial summit in London in 2007. The next summit will take place in Leuven and Louvain-la-Neuve in April 2009.

Following the success of the Bologna Process in higher education across Europe, the EU's Bruges-Copenhagen Process was launched to foster similar cooperation in vocational education and training.

In 2005 the Europe Unit produced the first edition of its own Guide to the Bologna Process. This was updated by the Unit's Guide to the Bologna Process - Edition 2 which was published at the end of 2006.