Higher Education System Reform : An International Comparison After Twenty Years of Bologna

The Bologna Declaration started the development of the European Higher Education Area. The ensuing Bologna Process has run for already 20 years now. In the meantime many higher education systems in Europe have been reformed – some more drastically than others; some quicker than others; some with more resistance than others. In the process of reform the initial (six) goals have sometimes been forgotten or sometimes been taken a step further. The context too has shifted: while the European Union in itself has expanded, the voice for exit has also been heard more frequently.

Higher Education System Reform: An international comparison after Twenty Years of Bologna critically describes and analyses 12 Higher Education Systems from the perspective of four major questions: What is currently the situation with regard to the six original goals of Bologna? What was the adopted path of reform? Which were the triggering (economic, social, political) factors for the reform in each specific country? What was the rationale/discourse used during the reform?

The book comparatively analyses the different systems, their paths of reforms and trajectories, and the similarities and the differences between them. At the same time it critically assesses the current situation on higher education in Europe, and hints towards a future policy agenda.

Contributors are: Tommaso Agasisti, Bruno Broucker, Martina Dal Molin, Kurt De Wit, Andrew Gibson, Ellen Hazelkorn, Gergely Kovats, Liudvika Leišytė, Lisa Lucas, António Magalhães, Sude Peksen, Rosalind Pritchard, Palle Rasmussen, Anna-Lena Rose, Christine Teelken, Eva M. de la Torre, Carmen Perez-Esparrells, Jani Ursin, Amélia Veiga, Jef C. Verhoeven, Nadine Zeeman, and Rimantas Želvys.

Bruno Broucker, Ph.D., is guest professor at the KU Leuven Public Governance Institute (Belgium), research fellow at the Leuven Economics of Education Research Centre and higher education expert at the Institute of Tropical Medicine. He is member of the executive committee of EAIR – the European Higher Education Society and has published articles and chapters on higher education governance and reform.
Kurt De Wit, Ph.D. in Sociology, is head of the Data Management Unit of the Education Policy Department at KU Leuven (Belgium). He publishes on governance reforms, uses of (big) data, and ICT use of students in higher education.
Jef C. Verhoeven, Ph.D., was Professor of Sociology at the KU Leuven (1970–2006) and is emeritus professor since 2006. He established the Centre for Sociology of Education at the KU Leuven (1977) and was head of this Centre. His recent publications are about higher education and the use of ICT, the access of Chinese ethnic minorities to Higher Education, and higher education policy.
Liudvika Leišytė, Ph.D., is professor of Higher Education and vice director of the Center of Higher Education (zhb, TU Dortmund). Her research focuses on academic work and organizational transformation in the context of changing institutional environment. She has published three books, a large number of chapters in edited books and peer-reviewed articles in Higher Education, Higher Education Policy, Public Administration, Public Management, Science and Public Policy and Studies in Higher Education.