Abstract
The future of the Bologna Process and the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) have been debated for more than 20 years (Bergan and Deca 2018). From the very start, even as the implementation of this continental-wide project in higher education got underway and in parallel to historical analyses (“looking back” too) that begun slowly to emerge, the future of the EHEA has been a constant preoccupation. It is perhaps in the nature of things that while the future can be close or distant, it never quite arrives, like a textitfata morgana, so that any discussion of “the future” can in principle be endless. Or, it could be that in this case discussions about the future indicate continuing uncertainty about the substance, shape and timeline of a European area for higher education. As we are completing the second decade of the Bologna Process and, if we take a formal approach, the first decade of the EHEA, this debate nevertheless takes on added urgency and includes some new elements. We are encouraged by the fact that few if any voices have been heard advocating an end to the EHEA. We therefore disregard this option here.
Highlights
When the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) was formally established a decade ago (Bologna Process 2010), it could be seen as a transition from a development process to a steady state of affairs
In the Paris Communiqué, these are described as follows: Academic freedom and integrity, institutional autonomy, participation of students and staff in higher education governance, and public responsibility for and of higher education form the backbone of the EHEA (Bologna Process 2018a: 1)
An emphasis on defining an overarching vision for the EHEA as we look toward its third decade should be welcomed
Summary
The future of the Bologna Process and the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) have been debated for more than 20 years (Bergan and Deca 2018). From the very start, even as the implementation of this continental-wide project in higher education got underway and in parallel to historical analyses (“looking back” too) that begun slowly to emerge, the future of the EHEA has been a constant preoccupation. The reason is that over the past few years, we have seen increasing violations of these values, as underlined in the Paris Communiqué: Academic freedom and integrity, institutional autonomy, participation of students and staff in higher education governance, and public responsibility for and of higher education form the backbone of the EHEA Having seen these fundamental values challenged in recent years in some of our countries, we strongly commit to promoting and protecting them in the entire EHEA through intensified political dialogue and cooperation (Bologna Process 2018a: 1). As with the social dimension of higher education, agreeing that the fundamental values are and should be at the core of the EHEA does not translate into agreed policy or performance criteria, as illustrated by the quite perfunctory coverage of these issues in the latest Bologna Implementation Report (European Commission//EACEA/Eurydice 2018: 40–46; see Jungblut, Maassen and Elken in this volume). It is perhaps a sign of health that making this admission is difficult, but it is not a sign of societal health that some governments try to make a virtue of being less than democratic, sometimes by attempting to redefine democracy by combining it with alien concepts like “illiberal”
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