Bologna Process

Logo with stylized stars
Logo
Map of Europe, encompassing the entire Bologna zone
Bologna zone

The Bologna Process is a series of ministerial meetings and agreements between European countries to ensure comparability in the standards and quality of higher-education qualifications.[1] The process has created the European Higher Education Area under the Lisbon Recognition Convention. It is named after the University of Bologna, where the Bologna declaration was signed by education ministers from 29 European countries in 1999. The process was opened to other countries in the European Cultural Convention[2] of the Council of Europe, and government meetings have been held in Prague (2001), Berlin (2003), Bergen (2005), London (2007), Leuven (2009), Budapest-Vienna (2010), Bucharest (2012), Yerevan (2015), Paris (2018), and Rome (2020).

Before the signing of the Bologna declaration, the Magna Charta Universitatum was issued at a meeting of university rectors celebrating the 900th anniversary of the University of Bologna (and European universities) in 1988. One year before the declaration, education ministers Claude Allègre (France), Jürgen Rüttgers (Germany), Luigi Berlinguer (Italy) and Baroness Blackstone (UK) signed the Sorbonne declaration in Paris in 1998, committing themselves to "harmonising the architecture of the European Higher Education system".[3] The Bologna Process has 49 participating countries.[4]

  1. ^ BONJEAN, Dominique (21 September 2018). "The Bologna Process and the European Higher Education Area". Education and Training - European Commission. Retrieved 24 March 2020.
  2. ^ Council of Europe. "European Cultural Convention". 1954.
  3. ^ "Sorbonne Joint Declaration: Joint declaration on harmonisation of the architecture of the European higher education system" (PDF). DAAD. 25 May 1998. Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 August 2009. Retrieved 28 April 2010.
  4. ^ "Members". European Higher Education Area. 2020. Retrieved 25 May 2021.