ACA would like to report on a successful outcome of a European Policy Seminar entitled ‘The Bologna Process in its final lap: Outcomes of the London Ministerial meeting’. A direct follow-up to the highly anticipated London meeting, this seminar drew on myriad topics highlighted in the new Communiqué. Peter Van der Hijden of the European Commission kicked off the seminar with a rich overview of Bologna, while David Crosier from the EUA reviewed the Trends report on stock-taking exercise presented to the Ministers in London. These projects evaluated the progress of the Bologna 45 countries on a wide variety of Bologna benchmarks. The seminar also delved into more technical discussions of the European Qualifications Framework (addressed by Jens Bjornavold of Cedefop), the new call for a European Register of Quality Assurance Agencies (outlined by Andrée Sursock of the EUA), and the ever-important issue of cross-border recognition of qualifications (discussed by John Reilly of the UK Erasmus Agency). ACA also addressed several themes that have been recently re-prioritised and refined by the ministers, namely the social dimensions of Bologna (questions of equity and access to higher education and mobility- presented by Martin Unger of the Institute of Advanced Studies), the new strategy for the Bologna Process in a global context (explored by Frances Kelly of the New Zealand Mission to the EU) and the possible approaches to improving the employability of graduates (addressed by an expert of World-Integrated Learning, Olof Blomqvist). ACA would like to thank both speakers and participants for a rich and stimulating event. Stay posted for announcements on our autumn seminar on EU-US education relations. Programme for Bologna seminar
Trends V
London Meeting documents