The Bologna Process: European Universities on their Toes Conference on Graduate Education and American Competitiveness Washington DC, 9 March 2005 Sybille Reichert, Zürich, Switzerland

2 1.The Bologna Process: from intergovernmental commitments to institutional realities 2.The European Research Area 3.Research Training as the new focus of European Higher Education debates

3 16 Million Higher Education students in 40 countries 800 universities of which 16% declare that they are serving a world-wide community, 7% a European community 52% serve a national community, 20% a regional community Some important data…

4 Evolution away from ‘elite’ higher education, with steadily increasing participation rates since 1970 Autonomy of institutions growing (speed depends on the individual countries) Remarkable increase of European mobility cooperation and networking, supported by EU Increase of output-based and competitive part of HE and research funding Increasing European competition for EU funds Increasing orientation toward international markets Cautious opening to private partnerships European Higher Education in Transition

5 1. Bologna Process: from intergovernmental commitments to institutional realities Originally an intergovernmental initiative: Bologna Declaration in 1999 comprises 29 (now 40) national commitments to create a common „readable“ European Higher Education Area which allows maximum mobility between different HE systems and is attractive to students and researchers from the rest of the world with the help of –compatible degree structures (Bachelor/ Master) based on a common credit system –comparable quality assurance systems, –helping mutual recognition of foreign degrees and study abroad, mobility –advancing lifelong learning –including doctoral level and research training (since 2003) European HE Area will only become a reality if Higher Education Institutions subscribe to the aims and implement the operational objectives – This seems to be actually happening: a majority of institutions is transforming the Bologna reforms into their own institutional development agenda.

6 Which aims are the driving forces of Bologna from the point of view of the institutions? 1.enhancement of academic quality – reforms go beyond just a formally changed degree system 2.preparing graduates for the European labour market – 91% of heads of HEIs regard employability as important of very important when redesigning curricula (70% of HEIs track employment of some or all graduates) –how to make sustainable employability and academic quality compatible values is the core challenge of curricular reform 3.competitiveness/ attractiveness of national (not European) system of HE employability academic quality attractiveness

7 Promote attractiveness where?

8 Targeting Europe?

9 Bachelor/Master at European HEIs Institutions with a degree structure based on two main cycles (Bachelor, Master) as envisaged by the Bologna Declaration, in most academic fields? Map revised on 17th June 2003

10 2. The Creation of a European Research Area agenda proposed by Eur. Com. (1999), adopted by goverments at Lisbon European Council (March 2000): „to become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world“, i.e. for Europe to become a global leader in scientific research and industrial innovation again =„reference framework for discussions of research policies in Europe“ realisation that the quality and availability of new knowledge and expertise are fundamental pre-conditions for the future well-being of our societies addressing 3 challenges –insufficient research funding, addressed again at Barcelona Council, March 2002 (COM 2002 „More research for Europe: Towards 3% GDP“ by 2010) –stimulating environment for research and research exploitation (concentration of excellence) –fighting the fragmented nature of activities and resources

11 Europe‘s Research is lagging behind: citations per scientific publication significantly higher in US than any EU country (1.64% of US publications are highly cited papers, in EU this is only the case for 0.25%) in , 63 Nobel laureates came from the US and only 17 from EU countries. in 1992 – 1999, there was at first a general negative growth, then a very small growth (mostly under 1%) of EU patents at the European and US patent offices. US (2.76%) and Japan (3.12%) still have higher R&D intensities than the EU-25 (1.93%) and China (1.23%). In the five years to 2002, the majority of EU-25 Member States' R&D expenditure underwent sustained growth in the years to 2002, the fastest growth rates being registered by Estonia, Cyprus and Hungary, with more than 11% annual average growth in real terms. Overall, the EU's R&D expenditure grew 6.47% a year on average, ( as compared to the US's by 5.83%, Japan's 6.19%, China's by 18.51%!).

12 But also catching up: Producing more S&E graduates per 1000 inhabitants than US Producing more publications than US Of the top 200 research universities (THES): there are 86 from Europe, only 62 from US (24 from Asia, 20 Australia): Top third: US 25, Europe 19 Second third: US 20, Europe 33 Third third: US 17, Europe 34 In 2002, the European Union counted 1.67 million researchers, twice the number in Japan. Total R&D personnel, the EU had more than 2.75 million. Big contributors to this high number are the larger Member States such as Germany, France, Spain. R&D personnel in the EU (FTE) registered an increase of 3 % in the three years to 2002.

13 Scientific publications: regional share of world output

14 EU Publications/ Citations compared to US Source: Nature, July 2004

15 Number of PH Ds

16 Ph D production is an important ingredient

17 But not sufficient: compare the number of researchers !

18 3. Research Training as the new Focus of European HE Reform Movement Research Training mostly oriented toward academic careers Little mobility between public and private research sectors Fragmented research markets, still dominated by national conditions Negative perceptions of career prospects Graduate training with little structure (lack of overarching offer, lack of interdisciplinary or social integration, insufficient networking or mentoring) Insufficient attention to diversification research careers, incl. insufficient skills training

19 ERA Activities create attractive scientific career options/ conditions (more diverse, less focused on academic market, more osmosis between univ. research and industry, tenure-track systems) strengthen mobility at doctoral and post-doctoral level, create a European market of young researchers de-fragment funding structures, e.g. making national funding structures more open to non-residents, easier cross-border funding, more multilateral schemes optimise sharing of infrastructures, develop common policies for big scientific infrastructures find more flexible funding mechanisms for emerging sectors of S&T, for interdisciplinary approaches establish an independent European Research Council as a funding agency for fundamental research committed purely to scientific excellence – a European voice for fundamental research

20 University Activities Creation of doctoral and graduate schools Introduction of research skills training which takes account of diverse careers Quality improvement of mentoring Networking between institutions to create more critical mass Cooperation with industry in research training (e.g. Finland, Ireland, UK, Germany) Embedding research training in institutional policies --More strategic awareness and targeted development of research strengths