"Re-designing the map of European higher education is a daunting task. Shaping the future European Higher Education Area (EHEA) is an incremental process. Its success depends much on a continuous dialogue with all stakeholders. Until now, the involvement of the community of higher education researchers did not appear clearly. It was a worthwhile initiative to look for their contributions. They have analysed the trends of society and higher education in trying to see and understand the future challenges of and for higher education. The outcomes of the Ghent Conference have demonstrated the value of that exercise. (...).
We have arrived at the final stages of the Bologna Process, or more precisely: we are about to reach the end of the process as it was originally conceived. The programme of the Bologna Declaration, as signed in 1999, was indeed meant to unroll “within the first decade of the third millennium”. The next meeting of European ministers responsible for higher education, in April 2009 in Leuven and Louvain-la-Neuve will hence be the last ministerial conference within the initial time-span of the process. But apart from an elaborate evaluation of the achievements
of the Bologna Process, the Ministerial Meeting will also focus on the challenges and objectives for the post-2010 agenda. For we believe that we should take the opportunity to reflect collectively on the needs for the next phase and the objectives that should be realized by 2020... (taken from the foreword).

Please note: only an extended excerpt of the book, including pages i-41, is available online.