Towards a European Area of
Higher Education and Research

Strategies and Perspectives

The Bologna Declaration, signed by 30 countries in 1999, represents a concrete and binding action programme to create joint structures in the higher education systems of the participating countries. The mobility of students and staff, the recognition of degrees and quality assurance of study programmes on a European level are to be improved. With the 6th framework programme for research and technological development, to be adopted later in 2002, the European Union wants to oppose the fragmentation of the European research landscapes.

Kowi-aktuell asked Professor Hans-Rainer Friedrich, Director-General for Higher Education in the Federal Ministry of Education and Research in Germany (BMBF) and in that capacity chairman of the ministerial preparatory group for the Bologna follow-up conference in Berlin 2003 for his comments on the creation of a joint European Area of Education and Research.

Kowi-aktuell: Where do you see concrete points of contact and interfaces between the development of a European Higher Education area on the one hand and the creation of a European Research Area, actively promoted by Research Commissioner Busquin, on the other?

Professor H.-R. Friedrich: The catchy term "European Higher Education Area" was introduced with the Bologna Declaration of 19 June 1999, the term European Research Area came up more than six months later in January 2000...

The points of contact and the interfaces are obvious: The universities are the core of the research system, in Germany as in the other European states. This is where basic research is carried out, where, in the interaction of research and teaching, the critical discussion with the young generation takes place, where future scientists and researchers are identified and trained.

The European research framework programmes, frequently formulated and handled in a rather technocratic manner, depend in many regards on the performance and contribution of the universities. Unfortunately the common citizen, taxpayer and EU-contributor rarely understands this fact, with the result that budget priorities to the benefit of the universities are often neglected.

A concrete example for the points of contact:

The report to the European Council in Stockholm (23/24 March 2001) on the progress in realising the European Area of Research and Innovation (Council doc. 07254/01) contains the sub-point "Removing obstacles to the mobility of academics in Europe". The same objective is already listed in the Bologna Declaration of 30 European Ministers of Higher Education of June 1999. Therefore it is only consistent and to be welcomed that EU Commissioners Reding (Education) and Busquin (Research) have in the meantime set up a working group within the EU Commission to identify common interests between the European Higher Education Area and the European Research Area and to work on them in an integrated manner. The Commission has announced to present a document on this matter by autumn 2002.

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Kowi-aktuell: Do the relevant European support instruments (mobility programmes for the students on the one hand and for researchers on the other) dovetail in a way that allows a sustainable overall strategy for Europe? A strategy that would allow the realisation of the ambitious objective of the EU summit in Lisbon in spring 2000 to make the EU the leading knowledge-based economic area worldwide.

Professor H.-R. Friedrich: We are not yet making full use of the potentials for cooperation and synergy between higher education (article 149, 150 of the Amsterdam treaty) and research at the level of the EU. This is partly due to the current institutional and organisational boundaries (different commissioners and directorates-general being in charge) and partly to a lack of coherent action at the level of the member states.

One example: The EU programme "Improving human potential" (individual scholarships for post-docs, returning researchers and experienced researchers) is run within the research framework programme. There is no systematic coordination with the other mobility and research grants of the EU in the education sector or with the national mobility and research funding programmes of the member states.

The so-called Bologna process, on the other hand, has already led to numerous results. Legislative projects, completed ones as in Italy that led to the full-scale reform of study structures, or ongoing ones like the Austrian "Federal law on the organisation of universities and their study programmes" refer explicitly to the challenges posed by the Bologna-development towards a European Higher Education Area.

Decisions taken by European and international organisations, often heralding and paving the way for future joint programme activities, have embraced the objectives of the Bologna Declaration, sometimes even taking them a step further towards realisation. This is e.g. true for the Resolution of the Council of Europe: "Lifelong learning for equity and social cohesion: a new challenge to higher education" of 17 November 2001 (DG IV/EDU/HE (2001) 33, Strasbourg, 5 February 2002).

The British and Dutch heads of government have just commented on the recent European Council Meeting of Barcelona in a letter to the Spanish President of the Council (The Hague, 19 February 2002). In it they confirm the objective of the European Council of Lisbon to make the EU within the coming decade the leading knowledge-based economic area worldwide. They consider it necessary to accelerate this process and ask the EU Commission to present in spring an action plan for the creation of a fully integrated "European Research and Innovation Area" (ERIA). In an enclosed paper entitled "Overcoming the European paradox" they present further detailed proposals to attain this goal. These proposals are certainly meaningful but again of a rather economic-technocratic kind, aiming at "action". They fail to point to the central role of higher education institutions and, in that context, the renewed enthusiasm of the young generation, both students and young scientists, for Europe. I am more inclined to agree with the Secretary General of the European Science Foundation (ESF), Eric Banda: Instead of the technocratic ERIA let us rather create a European Knowledge Area (EKA) [1] 

Kowi-aktuell: What model or concept can Germany as host to the Bologna follow-up conference in Berlin in 2003 offer to make sure Berlin will not just lead to declarations of intent but to concrete commitments?

Professor H.-R. Friedrich: The objectives of the next ministerial conference in Berlin are being developed jointly within the Berlin preparatory group. This is the only way to maintain the coherence of the Bologna process. Moreover it is an evolutionary process. Results of a number of so-called Bologna seminars on important specific aspects and goals that are presently taking place in various member states will provide the raw material for the preparation of Berlin 2003. Also the EU Commission provided input under the title "From Prague to Berlin", (Brussels, 27 November 2001, A2/PVDH-DG's HE/SOC COM-11).

Germany, being host to the conference, has numerous possibilities to offer ideas and creative proposals. Presently we strive to do so with purposeful calmness, avoiding premature hectic.

We started by creating a Berlin 2003 website (www.bologna-berlin2003.de) as a central platform for information and documentation. The website is open to all Bologna partners and will accompany us all the way to the ministerial conference in Berlin and beyond. The website is operational, have a look at it.

I think, also after receiving feedback from some "Bologna family members", that we succeeded in producing something helpful. In a few days we will put a "Report on the realisation of the Bologna process in Germany", written jointly by the KMK[2], the HRK[3] and the BMBF, on this website. In providing this "good example" we hope to encourage also the other 32 Bologna partners to produce up-dated reports on the implementation in their countries and to put them on the web.

Furthermore we are obviously analysing the formulated objectives of our "basic law", the Bologna Declaration, and its first "amendment", the Prague Communiqué, in order to develop them further and breathe real life into them.

During the first phase of the Bologna process we concentrated on the "two main cycles", not wanting to ask for too much at once. But even then we knew that there was something else coming afterwards: doctoral studies, the post-doc phase and the training of young researchers and scientists who should reach a highly qualified level and, if possible, should be offered independent research and teaching opportunitiesat an earlier stage than in the present system. We are now trying to integrate this phase into the Bologna process with its basic structure of agreeing on European principles without bureaucratic over-regulation of the details.

Under the pressure of an emerging "world education market" issues of quality assurance and quality documentation are assuming an ever more important role, also with regard to making use of a worldwide pool of talents for the dynamically developing area of Europe. With the European Network for Quality Assurance ENQA we have a good basis for developing European principles of good accreditation and evaluation, which we also need for our international cooperation activities.

Moreover we have to leave the level of noble declarations as soon as possible and descend to the level where real progress is made. Students should no longer listen in astonishment to what higher education ministers are promising for "the near future" but should feel concrete improvements – Europe has to be made accessible in the field of higher education. I am referring to the large-scale use of the Diploma Supplement and the exchange of experiences made with the DS, the introduction of a Bologna Student ID, rapid agreements on the use and transfer of ECTS.

Kowi-aktuell: The EUROHORCs promote the creation of a European Research Council. Where do you see the creative potential of such an idea in the context of the emerging European Areas of Higher Education and Research?

Professor H.-R. Friedrich: If Europe continues to grow together along the lines I have tried to indicate in my answers it probably would make sense to distribute on a European level part of the funds for basic research that are currently allocated nationally. This would have to be done, however, not through an administrative institution such as the EU Commission but along quality-oriented and science-based criteria, as is the case with the DFG in Germany.[4]

Some committed scientists – Prof. Dr. Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker (DFG), Prof. Dr. Eric Banda (ESF), Prof. Dr. George Radda (Medical Research Council London) and Prof. Dr. Hans Wigzell (Karolinska Institute Stockholm) have just presented proposals for a discussion on that matter (SCIENCE vol. 295, 18 January 2002, p.443 – 446).

We have to hold this discussion now. As it is unlikely that the budgets for science and research will grow in the near future there would have to be a consensus to earmark part of the available funds for "European" distribution. Obviously there would be no guarantee that a proportionate share of the funds would flow back to Germany as this decision would depend entirely on quality criteria.

My personal view is that we should take the risk all the same. Europe is our option for the future, we have no reasonable alternative.