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Looking at the past policies proposed by the Bologna Process, one can see that structural reforms have been the most successful policy area of the EHEA. Even so, implementation is uneven, and some countries are far from fulfilling their commitments in one or more areas of structural reforms. This puts the credibility of the EHEA in jeopardy as a framework within which national qualifications are compatible, are issued within comparable qualifications structures, are quality assured according to agreed standards and guidelines and are described in easily understandable formats. Nevertheless, EHEA was successful in promoting structural reforms but less so at explaining the rationale and the principles behind them.

There is an increasing disconnect between the notion of the relevance of internationalisation, within and for the sector, and recent trends in society toward greater inward focus, manifested by anti-global and anti-international tendencies. The theme: The Bologna Process and the wider world of higher education deal with those challenges, in particular with the paradox between collaboration and competition and with the resulting misconceptions concerning internationalisation of higher education that have contributed to this inward-looking trend around the world. The Bologna Process has to be concerned about these two paradoxes and address them in the next phase to come adequately. How is it possible to overcome these misconceptions and paradoxes to internationalisation and create a sustainable and comprehensive internationalisation for all students and faculty?

Since around the turn of the millennium, the European university has been re-furbished in the neoliberal style—the consequences of which to the lives of academics and students have been documented and analysed ad nauseam. But now, as the second decade of the twenty-first century draws to a close, subtle shifts are discernible and faint rumblings audible—which some commentators have taken as the faint overture of neoliberalism’s death knell. It is increasingly suggested that the neoliberal model is moribund. How imminent is its demise remains to be seen, but its days are certainly numbered; for, as surely as night follows day, every doctrine behind a political or economic model runs its course and is replaced. The winds of change are undoubtedly blowing, and when neoliberalism does become a thing of the past, quite a different university will emerge from its shadow. The post-neoliberal era and the academy that it fashions will make its way across much of Europe, redefining the shape and nature of the EHEA. Addressing the question: What might the post-neoliberal European university look like? Such redefinition is the focus of this predominantly conceptual and analytical chapter which argues for starting from a micro-level focus on reshaping European academic professionalism and considers the EHEA’s potential role in this.

There has been a growing interest among scholars of International Relations and Comparative Public Policy on issues of policy travel since the 1990s. Even though regional higher education policies are developed within certain intergovernmental policy settings encompassing shared interests among states of regional groupings, they tend to travel across continents impacting other regions, sometimes in quite different contexts. In this regard, the policy travel of the Bologna process of Europe into other regions could be a very good example as one of the pioneers of higher education policy harmonisation initiative. Since its inception in 1998, the policy has managed to attract the attention of other regions, including Africa, reshaping higher education policies at national sub-regional and continental levels. Explaining similar scenarios, a considerable number of literatures on the inter-regional movement of ideas and practices in social policy has been developed over the last twenty years through various concepts including ‘policy transfer’, ‘policy diffusion’, ‘cross-national attraction’, ‘policy borrowing’ and ‘policy convergence’. This particular paper explores the notion of policy travel through the conceptions of ‘policy transfer’ and ‘policy diffusion’ and addresses the underlying question of how the Bologna process of Europe travelled to the various sub-regions of Africa.

Transparency International (TI), an NGO working on corruption worldwide, commonly defines corruption as “the abuse of entrusted power for private gain.” In higher education, however, corruption also encompasses “the lack of academic integrity.” The second definition applies to both public and private institutions, since what they both offer—education—can be construed as a public good. Corruption might be perceived or it might not; in higher education, however, this differentiation is less relevant. Along with the kinds of monetary and non-monetary corruption that can be found anywhere in society, such as corruption in procurement and favouritism in hiring and/or promoting employees, corruption in higher education can implicate the students themselves, thus exerting an influence over the next generation.

After 25 years of transformations of higher education systems in Post-Soviet countries, the single Soviet model of higher education has evolved into fifteen unique national systems, shaped by economic, cultural, and political forces of national, regional and global character. One of these external forces has been the Bologna process which has exerted considerable isomorphic pressure on the systems of quality assurance and specifically accreditation in these countries, especially since the mid-2000s. The paper presents and compares the development trajectories of the quality assurance architecture in the three countries and illustrates the role of the Bologna Process in the interplay of global, regional, and national forces shaping the systems of quality assurance in three Post-Soviet countries of Russia, Moldova and Kazakhstan: Whereas Moldova and Kazakhstan have—arguably slowly and with considerable difficulty—moved closer to independent accreditation, aligning their QA regimes with the European Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance (ESG), Russia has reverted to a model of state-control, based on financial incentives, performance indicators and administrative intervention.

The internationalization of higher education is widely considered as a strategic priority for governments around the world because of the economic, political, social, and academic benefits associated with it. Starting from the premise that the nation-state plays a central role in the process of internationalizing higher education, the paper argues that it is important to take stock of the current state of affairs and ask: what are nation-states doing to internationalize higher education? The paper presents original data on the spread of national internationalization policies around the world. It finds that strategic thinking about internationalization is a relatively new phenomenon with limited coverage. In terms of the number of countries that adopt national policies, the analysis finds a world dominated by scattered efforts when it comes to higher education internationalization. Why is the absence of a national strategy problematic? In countries where universities are largely dependent on public money, having no coherent direction for internationalization at the national level can limit the scope and undermine the effectiveness of internationalization strategies at the institutional level.

This paper reflects on the need for a collaborative approach among all stakeholders and service providers at universities to promote and enhance their internationalisation efforts within higher education institutions. As outlined by the last addition to the internationalisation cycle presented by De Wit (Internationalisation of higher education in the United States of America and Europe: A historical, comparative, and conceptual analysis. Greenwood Publishers, Westport, CT, ), a supportive culture that will facilitate the integration of internationalisation into all aspects of institutions is critical to success. It is emphasized that internationalisation is not a goal in itself but a means to enhance the quality of education, research and service function of the university. Further, internationalisation may be enhanced by adding a collaborative component into all university services, thereby engaging key stakeholders. This paper offers a fresh and innovative approach linking formal and informal services inside higher education institutions, in order to formulate the best strategies to integrate collaborative services and approaches into the regular activities of formal or institutional services.

The article shows students’ perspective—the most important stakeholder in Higher Education—over internationalisation of higher education in the Romanian universities. To reach this desired outcome, we present conclusions from a survey taken by students from 17 universities from Romania and from an analysis of 19 university strategies in the field of internationalisation. The latter offers a glimpse into the institutional perspective over internationalisation transposed in HEIs goals and focus with regard to internationalisation. The aim of the article is to raise awareness on the students’ perspective, show the weaknesses and strengths of internationalisation, the reasons and barriers against taking part in a mobility experience and identify possible recommendations from students for the national level and for the Bologna Process.

Since the 2007 London declaration, which defined the social dimension in the context of the Bologna process, European countries have worked to ensure that efforts to raise the quality of teaching and research would go hand-in-hand with raising opportunities for under-represented groups. This chapter explores various aspects of the social dimension in the European higher education space. After presenting a theoretical framework explaining the importance of the social dimension and explaining how under-represented students are defined in Europe, it applies the equity filter to review a number of studies on key higher education aspects and recent phenomena, such as admission systems, the influence of rankings, the role of counselling, working students, refugee education, etc. Finally, it draws broad conclusions based on the findings of the studies.