The participants in the seminar concluded that structural cross-border cooperation between institutions and high-quality mobility of students and staff make an indispensable contribution to creating a well-educated and internationally oriented work-force and strengthen the intellectual, cultural, social, scientific and technological dimensions of the European knowledge-based society. When designing policies to facilitate and further mobility, this is to be taken into account. A sustained and continued attention to the implementation of already agreed policies and principles in the field of student mobility is required.

Regarding external quality assurance and requirements by national governments the seminar appealed to national authorities to standardise criteria or mutually recognise each other’s accreditation decisions and organise trust.

To increase the transparency of Europe’s more than 3000 institutions of higher education, a pilot for a European typology of institutions had been started with the purpose of trying out a draft typology. The seminar asked that the pilot should take into consideration related work carried out by the UNESCO-OECD activity on Guidelines on Quality Provision in Cross-Border Higher Education. The results of this pilot study could be reported to the Bologna Process.

The portability of students’ loans and grants is an important instrument in the promotion of mobility. The various systems of student support are basically designed for the students that study in their country of origin. Portability of student grants ought to be studied more closely within an EU context. This should be done in relation to, among other things, fees and maintenance costs.

The participants in the seminar concluded that a European fund for student support could reduce some obstacles to mobility, and that a network of student support experts from the countries participating in the Bologna Process should be founded.

Participants affirmed that issues relating to the portability of student support are a complex area, where education policy as well as income politics and social welfare are intertwined, and with national and supra-national interests at stake. In the light of the wish to increase mobility, student support is an important subject to be taken up in the context of the European Union, because of the tension between national policies and EU jurisprudence. These legal issues are linked with political, social and administrative issues. The participants called on all parties involved to take the necessary steps to reach a satisfactory solution for the problems identified.

Source: General Report to the Bologna Follow-Up Group to the Conference of European Ministers Responsible for Higher Education - Bergen 19/20 May 2005
Bologna Process between Berlin and Bergen

Related documents

Conference on designing policies for mobile students - Noordwijk 2004

Conclusions
General report
Work shops

Presentations

Opening 2 - Mark Rutte, State Secretary
Student perspectives – Andrzej Bielecki, ESIB
  
Keynote: Transparancy, programmes and institutions (relating to workshops 4 and 5) - Karl Dittrich, Vice-Chairman accreditation organisation NVAO i.o - in English  in Dutch
Keynote: financing mobility, students and institutions (relating to workshops 1, 2 and 3) - Achim Meyer auf der Heyde, Director Deutsche Studentenwerke
  
St. 1
EU-legislation and student support - S. Watson, European court of justice and A. Schrauwen, University of Amsterdam
  
St. 2
Student support and portability for study abroad: practice and issues - J. Vossensteyn, CHEPS
  
St. 3
Portability of grants and loans - E. Gulfeldt and L. Norman Torvang, Swedish Ministry of Education
Portability of grants and loans -R. Seerden, Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science
  
St. 4
Creating transparancy in the European higher education landscape: - J. Bartelse, Netherlands Association of Universities
  
St. 5
Quality assurance internationalisation - L. Franzoni, University of Bologna, R. van den Bergh and W. Schreuders, Erasmus University Rotterdam, EMLE

Main results and recommendations from the various workshops - Theo Toonen, Univeristy of Leiden