The Process — Bologna.science

In a nutshell

The Bologna Process is an agreement among European countries to make their university systems easier to understand and to move between. Countries keep their own universities and their own degrees, but they use a set of shared tools: the same credit system, the same ladder of degrees, the same quality standards and the same rules for recognising each other's diplomas.

The result is the European Higher Education Area. For a student it means that a semester abroad can count at home, and that a degree from one country can be read and recognised in another.

Sources: [5] [8]

In short

199929 countries signed the Bologna Declaration.

2010The European Higher Education Area was officially launched.

49countries and the European Commission are members today.

How it started

A year before Bologna, in May 1998, the ministers responsible for higher education in France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom signed a joint declaration at the Sorbonne in Paris.

In June 1999, ministers from 29 countries – Poland among them – signed the Bologna Declaration. It set out a handful of aims: degrees that are easy to read and compare, a system of two main cycles, a credit system such as ECTS, fewer obstacles to mobility, European cooperation in quality assurance and a European dimension in higher education.

Sources: [1] [2] [3]

From a process to an area

On 12 March 2010, at their conference in Budapest and Vienna, ministers adopted the Budapest-Vienna Declaration and officially launched the European Higher Education Area (EHEA).

The EHEA is not an institution of the European Union. Its members are 49 countries and the European Commission, and they include many countries outside the EU. In 2022 the rights of representation of Russia and Belarus were suspended; the Tirana Communiqué of 2024 maintained the suspension.

Sources: [4] [5]

How it works

Every two or three years, ministers meet at a ministerial conference to assess progress and decide on the next steps. Each conference ends with a communiqué or declaration – see Milestones. Between conferences the work is carried forward by the Bologna Follow-Up Group (BFUG), in which the members are represented.

Since 2018 countries also support each other in thematic peer groups, each devoted to one key commitment and coordinated by the Bologna Implementation Coordination Group. The decisions are then built into national law and practice – which is why the same tool can look slightly different from one country to another.

Sources: [6] [5] [7]

Three key commitments

In the Paris Communiqué of 2018 ministers named three key commitments that every member should meet:

a three-cycle system compatible with the overarching qualifications framework, with first- and second-cycle degrees measured in ECTS;
recognition in line with the Lisbon Recognition Convention, including use of the Diploma Supplement;
quality assurance in line with the ESG.

Sources: [7]

The tools

Six tools do most of the work, and each has its own page on this site:

ECTS credits – ECTS credits describe the learning a course asks for, not how well a student did.
Three cycles – How the three-cycle degree structure of the European Higher Education Area came about, what each cycle typically involves, where the short cycle fits and what the doctorate is for.
Qualifications frameworks – What the Framework of Qualifications for the EHEA (QF-EHEA) is, what the Dublin descriptors describe, how national frameworks relate to it and how it differs from the EU's EQF.
Diploma Supplement – The Diploma Supplement explains a degree to people who have never seen the university that awarded it.
Quality assurance – How quality assurance works in the European Higher Education Area: the ESG standards and what they ask of universities and agencies, and the EQAR register.
Recognition – What the Lisbon Recognition Convention promises, who has to prove what, and where to ask about recognition of a qualification.

What it is not

Not one European degree. Countries keep their own degrees and fit them into a common structure.
Not an EU law. The commitments are made by ministers of the member countries and implemented nationally.
Not a guarantee of identical outcomes. Comparable degrees can still differ, which is why recognition looks at learning outcomes.