On 24 and 25 May 2018, the 48 countries of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) gathered in Paris for the Bologna Process Ministerial Conference. The Conference was preceded by a celebratory event on 23 May at La Sorbonne to mark the 30th anniversary of the Magna Charta Universitatum, the 20th anniversary of the Sorbonne Declaration, and the 10th anniversary of the European Quality Assurance Register for Higher Education (EQAR).
On 25 May, the ministers adopted the Paris Communiqué, which sets the priorities for the next two years until the Ministerial Conference in Rome in 2020. The Paris Communique’ reitirates the three key commitments of recognition, the three-cycle system, and quality assurance, and as a novelty this year, sets up a peer support system to facilitate and speed up implementation across the EHEA. Also, the communique’ gives important focus on teaching and learning, including the impact of digitalisation.
ENQA issued a message to the ministers attending the conference. The message provides an overview of the main achievements in external quality assurance since 2015 and ENQA’s contribution to the Bologna Process. Importantly, it also contains recommendations to the national authorities, in view of supporting ESG-compliant external quality assurance across Europe.