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EUA President underlines importance of communication to the future of the Bologna Process

September 03, 2010

EUA President, Professor Jean-Marc Rapp last week gave the opening speech “Towards Bologna 2020” at the Annual meeting of EUPRIO – the Association of “European Universities Public Relations and Information Officers”, which took place in Stresa, Italy.

Professor Rapp was invited to give an overview of the “Bologna Process towards 2020” including the key priorities over the next decade and the consequences for communication professionals working in higher education.

He underlined that the EUA Trends 2010 study had shown that the ‘Bologna architecture’ was now firmly in place. Looking to the future, he stressed that the European Higher Education Area “needs support from all stakeholders to develop its full potential in fostering a flexible system of higher education across the continent based on student centred learning which provides graduates with all the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in the 21st century”.

Communication professionals in universities would have a key role to play in reaching these different stakeholder groups and in ensuring that information about the reforms taking place reaches all those concerned, he told the audience.

It would also be important to explain that Bologna is a package of reforms that makes sense when viewed as an ensemble while another crucial element concerns the need to explain the relationship  between the structural reforms introduced and the overall goal of improving the quality of our study programmes that can only come about through the adaptation and rethinking of curricula at each level using the learning outcomes based approach that is at the centre of the concept of ‘student centred learning’.