Tracking a Remarkable Intellectual and Policy Journey: Building a European Higher Education Area Furthering the Fundamental Values of Higher Education

TY - CHAP

T1 - Tracking a Remarkable Intellectual and Policy Journey: Building a European Higher Education Area Furthering the Fundamental Values of Higher Education

AU - Matei, Liviu

AU - Bergan, Sjur

PY - 2024

Y1 - 2024

N2 - This chapter identifies and discusses a remarkable dimension of the process of building the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), which concerns the fundamental values of higher education. From their very start, the Bologna Process and the EHEA have included references to values. The chapter tracks how these references evolved over 25 years from being unsystematic and not very central from a policy point of view to becoming a well-articulated and solid intellectual an policy framework for the entire Process. In 2018, members of the EHEA adopted a defined list of six EHEA “fundamental values of higher education”. They are now completing a process of adopting shared EHEA definitions for each fundamental value, have made explicit commitments about how they are expected to further in practice these values as jointly defined (“protect” “and “promote” the fundamental values), and have agreed in principle to implement amonitoring mechanism to assess how these commitments are implemented in all systems. In order to track and interpret the milestones and overall trajectory of this development, the chapter relies on an analysis of the Bologna Ministerial Communiqués. Other official documents are also considered, along with relevant contributions from the scholarship of the Bologna Process and EHEA.

AB - This chapter identifies and discusses a remarkable dimension of the process of building the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), which concerns the fundamental values of higher education. From their very start, the Bologna Process and the EHEA have included references to values. The chapter tracks how these references evolved over 25 years from being unsystematic and not very central from a policy point of view to becoming a well-articulated and solid intellectual an policy framework for the entire Process. In 2018, members of the EHEA adopted a defined list of six EHEA “fundamental values of higher education”. They are now completing a process of adopting shared EHEA definitions for each fundamental value, have made explicit commitments about how they are expected to further in practice these values as jointly defined (“protect” “and “promote” the fundamental values), and have agreed in principle to implement amonitoring mechanism to assess how these commitments are implemented in all systems. In order to track and interpret the milestones and overall trajectory of this development, the chapter relies on an analysis of the Bologna Ministerial Communiqués. Other official documents are also considered, along with relevant contributions from the scholarship of the Bologna Process and EHEA.

U2 - 10.1007/978-3-031-75140-0_22

DO - 10.1007/978-3-031-75140-0_22

M3 - Chapter

SP - 405

EP - 429

BT - European Higher Education Area 2030: Bridging Realities for Tomorrow’s Higher Education

PB - Springer

ER -