Sursock, A. and Smidt, H. Trends 2010: A decade of change in European Higher Education. EUA, 2010. ISBN: 9789078997177. Pages: 126.

One of the most awaited studies of the year and one of the highlights during the Bologna Process anniversary conference in Budapest-Vienna in March was, no doubt about it, the EUA ‘Trends 2010' report. Entitled ‘Trends 2010: A decade of change in European higher education’, the study analyses the implementation of the Bologna Process and its impact over the last decade on higher education across the 46 participating countries. The report is the sixth in the "Trends" series and is based on questionnaire responses from 821 universities, 27 national university associations, and site visits to 16 countries.

‘Trends 2010’ looks not only at the implementation of the Bologna ‘tools’ in universities (e.g. new degree structures, credit transfer and accumulation systems ECTS, and the use of the diploma supplement) since 1999, but also at the progress made towards the core aims of the Bologna Process, namely improving quality of teaching, graduate employability, and mobility of students and staff. With respect to these three, the study finds that

• Bologna can be considered as a catalyst to improve quality of teaching and to move towards student-centred learning: 77 percent of universities said they have reviewed their curricula in all departments under the Bologna Process (an increase by 22 % points since 2007); plus a noticeable advancement towards developing learning outcomes was reported (53% of universities said that learning outcomes have been developed for ‘all courses’ and a further 32% for ‘some courses’);

• Problems persist when it comes to graduate employability, in particular at the bachelor level in countries which have introduced the bachelor cycle recently (employers do not fully recognise this new qualification). In these countries the master tends to remain the basic entry level to the labour market.

• In spite of all efforts to promote mobility, there is little sound data available on mobility flows and on how these have developed since the inception of the Bologna Process.

Last but not least, the study looks at some of the key challenges for policymakers in the next decade of higher education cooperation.

The full report can be downloaded from the EUA website.