Eurostat provides statistics for the monitoring of the social dimension and mobility of the Bologna Process.
The Bologna Process is an intergovernmental initiative which also involves the European Commission, the Council of Europe and UNESCO-CEPES, as well as representatives of higher education institutions, students, staff, employers and quality assurance agencies. It aims to create a European Higher Education Area by 2010, and to promote the European system of higher education worldwide.
One of the operational goals to reach this broad objective is to remove the obstacles to student mobility across Europe, and more broadly support the mobility of students, teachers and researchers.
At the Ministerial conference which took place in London in 2007, the Ministers agreed to the following common intention concerning the social dimension of the Bologna Process:
We share the societal aspiration that the student body entering, participating in and completing higher education at all levels should reflect the diversity of our populations. We reaffirm the importance of students being able to complete their studies without obstacles related to their social and economic background. (London Communiqué 2007, 2.18)
This was indeed not a new objective for the Bologna Process and the intention had been formulated in previous Communiqués. However, new was the agreement to require a specially commissioned statistical report:
We recognise the need to improve the availability of data on both mobility and the social dimension across all the countries participating in the Bologna Process. We therefore ask the European Commission (Eurostat), in conjunction with Eurostudent, to develop comparable and reliable indicators and data to measure progress towards the overall objective for the social dimension and student and staff mobility in all Bologna countries. Data in this field should cover participative equity in higher education as well as employability for graduates. This task should be carried out in conjunction with BFUG and a report should be submitted to our 2009 Ministerial conference. (London Communiqué 2007, 3.4)
Following this request, Eurostat, together with Eurostudent and the data collection working-group set up by the Bologna Follow-up group, defined a set of 18 indicators to monitor progress in mobility and the social dimension of the Bologna Process. A statistical publication assessing the results was co-publised by Eurostat and Eurostudent in April 2009.
