Excellence in European Higher Education: Bologna and Beyond

This paper explores the role of quality and quality assurance in European higher education, both in the current Bologna process and in the further future. The tension between striving for excellence and achieving adequate, threshold levels of quality, is a major theme. It describes accreditation as a major form of quality assurance, spreading because of the Bologna process in Europe. Then, major policy developments up to the European Standards and Guidelines are sketched. A discussion follows of limitations quality assurance encounters in further fostering European harmonisation of higher education and of some other instruments (e.g. rankings). Finally, some major influences on the future European higher education landscape are sketched, leading to the conclusion that notwithstanding the advent of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), intra-European differences will remain important.