In March 2010, the European Higher Education Area was officially launched, proclaiming the culmination of a ten-year timeframe projected at Bologna in 1999, when the education ministers of 29 European states signed a declaration that would fundamentally influence the future of their higher education systems. Forty-seven countries, including all EU Member States and other countries as far afield as Kazakhstan, now take part in the so-called 'Bologna Process'. Remarkably, this vast enterprise, which has led to rapid and sweeping changes in almost all higher education systems in Europe, has taken place outside the framework of the European Union and the Council of Europe. In fact, as this important legal analysis shows, it appears that with the Bologna Process the Member States have tried to sidestep the EU's growing influence on higher education. Although the Bologna Process has generated an impressive literature addressing what it might mean, where it suddenly came from, and how it has become so powerful, until now the legal implications of the process, and its tense relationship with EU law, have been left almost entirely unexamined. This work fills that gap. Among the often controversial issues raised are the following: ; avoidance of the democratically legitimate procedures of the EU's institutional framework for cultural reasons connected with state sovereignty; the scope of EU legal competence for various kinds of activities in the educational sector; specific areas of overlap between EU law and the Bologna Process and their implications; voluntary intergovernmental cooperation as a paradigmatic global shift of internationalization policies in education; the idea that the university is being redefined, from a social institution to an industry; the increasingly influential role in the process, by means of funding and coordination, of the European Commission; financial support programmes and devices to enhance credit and degree recognition; students as recipients of services; and teachers and the free movement of workers. The author describes how the scope of the Bologna Process was significantly broadened during a series of meetings during the decade, analyses the relevance of the case law of the European Court of Justice and provides a detailed description of the adoption of the process into the national laws of France, Germany and the United Kingdom. A concluding normative assessment scrutinizes the process on the basis of democracy, transparency and accountability. As the first study of the legitimacy of Bologna from a European law perspective - and by extension of the 'Europeanization' of higher education, including the role of the EU, EU law, and law in general - this is a critically important contribution to a contentious debate that clearly holds great significance for the future of law and society. Educators and education policymakers are sure to read and study it with interest.

Since 1999 European higher education has been engaged in the most radical reform of its 900 years of history. This volume brings together a group of higher education researchers across Europe and looks into the implementation of the Bologna Process in the countries often attributed a peripheral status. In addition to cultural and political issues, the volume pays particular attention to the role of students as well as the changing position of the intellectuals under its impact.

This book investigates the impact of EU law and policy on the Member States’ higher education institution (HEI) sectors with a particular emphasis on the exposure of research in universities to EU competition law. It illustrates how the gradual application of EU economic law to HEIs which were predominantly identified as being within the public sector creates tensions between the economic and the social spheres in the EU. Given the reluctance of the Member States to openly develop an EU level HEI policy, these tensions appear as unintended consequences of the traditional application of the EU Treaty provisions in areas such as Union Citizenship, the free movement provisions and competition policy to the HEI sector. These developments may endanger the traditional non-economic mission of European HEIs. In this respect, the effects of Union Citizenship and free movement law on HEIs have received some attention but the impact of EU competition law constitutes a largely unexplored area of research and this book redresses that imbalance. The aim of the research is to show that intended and unintended consequences of the EU economic constitution(s) are enhanced by a parallel tendency of Member States to commercialise formerly public sectors such as the HEI sector. The book investigates the potential tensions through doctrinal analysis and a qualitative study focussing on the exposure of HEI research to EU competition law as an under-researched example of exposure to economic constraints. It concludes that such exposure may compromise the wider aims that research intensive universities pursue in the public interest. Andrea Gideon is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Law & Business (National University of Singapore) for which she has suspended her position as Lecturer in Law at the University of Liverpool. In her current project she is investigating the application of competition law to public services in ASEAN. Her previous research concerned tensions between the economic and the social in the EU with a focus on EU competition law in which research area she earned her PhD at the University of Leeds in 2014.

Higher education legislation is frequently changed by policy makers, who are acutely conscious that specific changes have repercussions through the law of general applicability, and eventually may alter and revise fundamental societal concepts. However, normative systems are complex, and the impact and direction of legal and social repercussions are neither always intended, nor are they easily foreseen. It is the purpose of this book to identify the chosen directions, and to contribute to the further development of issues in the higher education and research sector and to trace beginnings of new trends. This volume is intended to appeal to the reader's personal, practical perspective to help generate the creativity and inspiration needed in order to maintain the equilibrium between consolidation and change. In the Council of Europe, much thought has been given to these problems in recent years. The Higher Education and Research Committee (CC-HER), previously known as the Standing Conference of University Problems (CC-PU), has established a Legislation Reform Programme for Higher Education (LRP). The Programme is intended to give effective support to the process of legislative reform in higher education, particularly, but not exclusively, in the new member states in central and eastern Europe. To promote dissemination of experience acquired throughout Europe and as a complement to its ongoing advisory and multilateral activities, the Programme's Steering Group has decided to publish a series entitled `Legislating for Higher Education and Research in Europe'. The first volume of this series, Relations between State and Higher Education, is hereby presented to the general public. Relations between State and Higher Education has been compiled in close co-operation with States Parties to the European Cultural Convention. It seeks, as will subsequent volumes, to identify core issues which countries may need to confront in their legislations, and offers examples of good practice.

Traditionally viewed as a positive phenomenon, student mobility has recently come under critical scrutiny as a result of the financial crisis pushing European solidarity to its breaking point, and the fear of excessive EU incursion into the autonomy of Member States with respect to their higher education systems. In Balancing Student Mobility Rights and National Higher Education Autonomy in the European Union , Alexander Hoogenboom contributes to the ongoing and evolving debate from a legal perspective. The book offers recommendations with a view to reconcile the mobility rights of Union citizens for study purposes and the need to respect Member State autonomy in the organisation of their higher education systems. The argument made suggests rethinking established principles in EU free movement law while encouraging greater EU involvement in student funding opportunities.

Since the early Eighties a number of themes have dominated the landscape of higher education, among them budget cuts, rationalisation in provision, accountability and quality control, closer links between higher education and the region, and a greater alertness to changes in economic and social policy. At the institutional level, the drive towards a greater degree of latitude and autonomy has found a ready echo among universities and other establishments of higher education. And this, in its turn, has posed major questions about the range of responsibilities central government and administration ought to retain or to delegate. Here is an in-depth treatment of the important legal issues emerging from these developments.

PDF available for free on: http://martenscentre.eu/publications/higher-education-twenty-first-century-european-and-us-approaches Europeans and Americans have a lot to learn from one another when it comes to higher education. The US offers a wider and more diversified range of choice in higher education, and more Americans than Europeans attend higher education institutions. Conversely, European universities are more intellectually oriented, and European students generally are better equipped to analyse and adapt to new situations. This paper analyses the strengths and weaknesses of both systems and assesses how each can benefit from the other.