Executive Summary

The indicators for the 2009 stocktaking were designed to verify whether the original goals of the Bologna process - which were expected to be achieved by 2010 - were actually being achieved in reality. Whereas in 2005 it was sufficient to show that work had been started, and for the 2007 stocktaking it was often enough that some work towards achieving the goals could be demonstrated or that legislation was in place, in 2009 the criteria for the indicators were substantially more demanding.

Because of the more demanding indicators, the overall picture for the whole EHEA is not as “green” in 2009 as it was in the two previous stocktaking reports in 2005 and 2007, although there are a number countries that have improved their scores in this stocktaking exercise (see the summary for the various action lines below).

The more detailed analysis that was applied to the information provided in the 2009 national reports clearly showed whether the reforms really concerned the whole higher education system or applied only to parts of it. It is likely that this has lowered the scores of some countries that might have given an overall answer “yes” in 2007, when in fact some parts of the HE system were not actually covered by the reforms.