Bologna Process

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. 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 of the Council of Europe, and governmental meetings have been held in Prague (2001), Berlin (2003), Bergen (2005), London (2007), Leuven (2009), Budapest-Vienna (2010), Bucharest (2012), Yerevan (2015) and Paris (2018). 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 Allegre (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'. The Bologna Process has 48 participating countries. Signatories of the Bologna Accord, members of the European Higher Education Area, are: All member states of the EU are participating in the process, with the European Commission also a signatory. Monaco and San Marino are the only members of the Council of Europe which did not adopt the process. The ESU, EUA, EURASHE, EI, ENQA, UNICE, the Council of Europe and UNESCO are part of the process' follow-up. Other groups at this level are ENIC, NARIC and EURODOC. Four countries are not members of the process. Although Kyrgyzstan ratified the Lisbon Recognition Convention in 2004, it is not a party to the European Cultural Convention of the Council of Europe and there are no known plans to expand the convention's geographical scope. Israel is not a party to the European Cultural Convention of the Council of Europe, although it has observer status. Although Israel is not geographically part of Europe, it is part of the UNESCO European Region. Israel is also a signatory of the Lisbon Recognition Convention but, under the criteria of the Berlin Communiqué, ineligible for the Bologna Process. Kosovo is not a party to the European Cultural Convention of the Council of Europe. Although Serbia is a party, Kosovo declared independence from it and has theoretically been a part of the Bologna Process since the 1999 war. It was suggested that Kosovo could be associated with the process in a category appropriate to its situation, such as guest or special-observer status.