The starting point for the Bologna Seminar on Recognition and Credit Systems in the Context of Lifelong Learning organized by the Czech authorities in cooperation with the Czech Technical University is that higher education is no longer a once in a lifetime experience, if it ever was.

Lifelong learning policies, as well as the broader issue of the European Higher Education Area, are discussed in a context marked by globalization, massification of higher education, decreasing demographic curves, an increasingly heterogenous student body, an emphasis on the need for quality education and increasing pressures as concerns employability and the competitiveness of students on the labor market.