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The European Higher Education Area (EHEA) was launched in March 2010, during the Budapest-Vienna Ministerial Conference, on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the Bologna Process. As the main objective of the Bologna Process since its inception in 1999, the EHEA was meant to ensure more comparable, compatible and coherent higher education systems in
Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
. Between 1999 and 2010, all the efforts of the Bologna Process members were targeted to creating the European Higher Education Area, which became reality with the Budapest-Vienna Declaration of March 2010. In order to join the EHEA, a country must sign and ratify the
European Cultural Convention The European Cultural Convention is an international Council of Europe's treaty to strengthen, deepen and further develop a European culture, by using local culture as a starting point. Setting common goals and a plan of action to reach an int ...
treaty. Denmark was the first country outside the UK and the US to introduce the 3+2+3 system.


General objectives

The key objectives are promoting the mobility of students and staff, the employability of
graduates Graduation is the awarding of a diploma to a student by an educational institution. It may also refer to the ceremony that is associated with it. The date of the graduation ceremony is often called graduation day. The graduation ceremony is al ...
and the European dimension in higher education. Coping with the diversity of their national systems, the EHEA members agree to adopt: * A common system of easily readable and comparable diplomas; * A framework based mainly on three main cycles:
bachelor A bachelor is a man who is not and has never been married.Bachelors are, in Pitt & al.'s phrasing, "men who live independently, outside of their parents' home and other institutional settings, who are neither married nor cohabitating". (). Etymo ...
,
master Master or masters may refer to: Ranks or titles * Ascended master, a term used in the Theosophical religious tradition to refer to spiritually enlightened beings who in past incarnations were ordinary humans *Grandmaster (chess), National Master ...
,
doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''l ...
; * A common
quality assurance Quality assurance (QA) is the term used in both manufacturing and service industries to describe the systematic efforts taken to ensure that the product(s) delivered to customer(s) meet with the contractual and other agreed upon performance, design ...
system.


The main actions of the European Area


Student mobility and mutual recognition of diplomas

Student mobility implies a coherent system of studies and diplomas: * The ECTS credit system facilitates the recognition of study periods between EHEA institutions. An academic year normally corresponds to the validation of 30 credits; one credit needs approximately 25 to 30 hours of student work (courses, projects, personal work, etc.). * The
European Qualifications Framework The European Qualifications Framework (EQF) acts as a translation device to make national qualifications more readable across Europe, promoting workers' and learners' mobility between countries and facilitating their lifelong learning. The EQF a ...
defines 3 main cycles (first cycle, second cycle and third cycle). Each cycle is defined by the number of credits required and the description of the
learning outcomes Although the noun forms of the three words ''aim'', ''objective'' and ''goal'' are often used synonymously, professionals in organised education define the educational ''aims'' and ''objectives'' more narrowly and consider them to be distinct from ...
and skills expected for each graduate: ** The first cycle (180 to 240 ECTS credits), generally leading to the bachelor’s degree. ** The second cycle (90 to 120 ECTS credits), generally leading to the master's degree. ** The 3rd cycle, leading to the Doctorate degree. * In 2018, a short cycle was introduced (90 to 120 ECTS).


Quality assurance

The European area does not aim to standardize national higher education systems, but to make them more readable and to build mutual trust between higher education institutions. The mutual recognition of diplomas is based, not on the comparison of the content of the programs, but on the definition and validation of the targeted learning outcomes. From its origin, the need for a common quality assurance system arose in the EHEA. The European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA) was responsible for defining the standards and guidelines, which are broken down into 3 chapters: * Internal quality assurance in institutions: each institution must have a policy and an internal organization of self-assessment and continuous improvement, implemented with all its stakeholders (students, staff, former graduates and representatives of society and employers). * External quality assurance: institutions must submit their organization and results to external and independent evaluations (including accreditation agencies). * Quality assurance of accreditation agencies: the agencies must act in full autonomy (in particular from public or private powers) to evaluate the institutions and their training, and to bring the results to the attention of the public.


European programs


Erasmus Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (; ; English: Erasmus of Rotterdam or Erasmus;''Erasmus'' was his baptismal name, given after St. Erasmus of Formiae. ''Desiderius'' was an adopted additional name, which he used from 1496. The ''Roterodamus'' w ...
and
Erasmus Mundus The European Union's Erasmus Mundus programme (named after Erasmus, the Renaissance scholar) aims to enhance quality in higher education through scholarships and academic co-operation between the EU and the rest of the world. The three main objec ...
programs

The Erasmus and Erasmus Mundus Programs are initiatives of the
European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are located primarily in Europe, Europe. The union has a total area of ...
to promote the mobility of students and teachers. They therefore primarily concern the 27 countries of the Union, with which other countries such as Norway, Iceland and Turkey have joined forces. Strictly speaking, these are not programs of the European Area, but they largely contribute to its development.


"European Universities" initiative

In 2017, the
European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are located primarily in Europe, Europe. The union has a total area of ...
launched the “European Universities” initiative, aimed at «strengthening, throughout the EU, strategic partnerships between higher education institutions and encouraging the emergence, by 2024, of some twenty European universities»; in fact more than 40 have been already created. These universities are networks of high-level universities, which will allow students to obtain a diploma by combining studies in several EU countries and which will contribute to the international competitiveness of European higher education.


Members

Participating member states of the European Higher Education Area are: * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Countries eligible to join: *


Public international law standards

* Lisbon Recognition Convention (Lisbon, 4 July 1997) * Article 2 of the first Protocol to the
European Convention on Human Rights The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR; formally the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms) is an international convention to protect human rights and political freedoms in Europe. Drafted in 1950 by ...
(Paris, 20 March 1952) * Article 10 of the European Social Charter (revised, Strasbourg, 3 May 1996)


Documents


Main documents


Colleges and universities in Europe

* League of European Research Universities


Lists of colleges and universities in Europe


Note

The two first sections are widely extracted from the French Wikipedia page Espace Européen de l'Enseignement Supérieur, with it
list of authors


See also

* Directorate-General for Education and Culture * Bologna process * Diploma Supplement * Erasmus programme * European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) *
Homologation Homologation ( Greek ''homologeo'', ὁμολογέω, "to agree") is the granting of approval by an official authority. This may be a court of law, a government department, or an academic or professional body, any of which would normally work ...
* :Lists of universities and colleges * European Research Area (ERA) * TEMPUS * Lisbon Recognition Convention


References


External links


The Official European Higher Education Area website 2010-2020The Bologna DeclarationEuropean Cultural Convention
(Paris, 19 December 1954)
EUNIS (European University Information Systems)
{{Authority control Higher education organisations based in Europe Lists of universities and colleges in Europe