"The number of actors, instruments, and institutions that are involved at different levels makes higher education policy implementation within the Bologna Process an interesting topic to explore," said PhD student Simona Torotcoi. She made her remarks during a presentation at the Annual Doctoral Conference at CEU on April 5. She went on to explain that there are other ways in which the Bologna Process, an initiative to strengthen and harmonize higher education in Europe, is interesting. "The fact that this cooperation among intergovernmental organizations such as the Council of Europe, supranational bodies such as the European Commission, stakeholder groups such as the European Students' Union, and national higher education institutions is voluntary is also quite extraordinary," she says.
Torotcoi says that when she began to explore this topic she was curious to find out more about other regional cooperation initiatives in the higher education sector. She found similarities with MERCOSUR Educativo (in South America) and ASEAN, but also enough differences to cause her to ask, "Is the Bologna Process a unique phenomenon?" Her answer: "not really," but, she adds quickly, "I think that it is worthwhile to study this process though." Torotcoi points out, for example, that it would be useful for higher education policy-makers, actors, and stakeholders to know more about why member states act, or fail to act, in line with the objectives of the Bologna Process. "This might lead to better policy interventions and more informed policies in the future," she says. Torotcoi says that her project is also a valuable opportunity to "analyze cooperation among European states and compliance with soft law policies in a sector where the EU has only limited competence."
The session at which Torotcoi made her presentation was chaired by SPP Visiting Professor Sara Svensson. "I was impressed," says Svensson, "by Simona's systematic comparison among the regional cooperation initiatives." She added, "Something I learned from her talk was that the MERCOSUR higher education initiative is actually older than the European Bologna Process. It would be easy to take for granted that policy learning on the use of soft law in education should go from Europe to other places, but Simona demonstrated that it might be more complicated."