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Bologna process:
The purpose of the Bologna process is to create the
European higher education area by making
academic degree standards and quality assurance standards more comparable and compatible throughout
Europe. It is named after the place it was proposed, the
University of Bologna with the signing, in
1999, of the
Bologna declaration by ministers of education from 29 European countries in the Italian city of
Bologna. This was opened up to other countries, and further governmental meetings have been held in
Prague (
2001),
Berlin (
2003) and
Bergen (
2005); the next meeting will take place in
London in Spring 2007.
Before the signing of the Bologna declaration, the Magna Carta Universitatum had been issued at a meeting of university rectors celebrating the 900th anniversary of the
University of Bologna - and thus of European universities - in
1988. One year before the Bologna declaration, education ministers
Claude Allegre (France),
Jürgen Rüttgers (Germany),
Luigi Berlinguer (Italy) and the
Baroness Blackstone (UK) signed the
Sorbonne declaration in Paris
1998, committing themselves to "harmonising the architecture of the European Higher Education system". French officials in particular therefore often refer to the La Sorbonne/Bologna process.
The
Council of Europe and
UNESCO have jointly issued the
Lisbon recognition convention on recognition of academic qualifications as part of the process, which has been ratified by the majority of the countries party to the Bologna process.