The University at a Crossroads

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HUMAN ARCHITECTURE: JOURNAL OF THE SOCIOLOGY OF SELF-KNOWLEDGE A Publication of OKCIR: The Omar Khayyam Center for Integrative Research in Utopia, Mysticism, and Science (Utopystics)

The University at a Crossroads

Boaventura de Sousa Santos Centro de Estudos Sociais, Universidade de Coimbra, Portugal –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– [email protected]

Abstract: Finding the university as a whole at a signiﬁcant historical and global crossroads, the author formulates a series of twelve “strong questions” about the contemporary university in the context of the European Bologna Process—named after the Bologna Declaration organized by the European Union education ministers in 1999 aimed at reforming higher education in Europe and creating the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). The questions addressed “go to the roots of the historical identity and vocation of the university in order to question… whether the university, as we know it, indeed has a future” (author). The questions aim to determine, for example: whether the university can successfully reinvent itself as a center of knowledge in a globalizing society with many other centers; whether there will be room for “critical, heterodox, non-marketable knowledge,” respectful of cultural diversity, in the university of the future; whether the scenario of a growing gap between “central” and “peripheral” universities can be avoided; whether market imperatives can be relativized as a criterion for successful research and the needs of society—in particular those not reducible to market needs—be taken sufﬁciently into account; and, whether the university can become the site of the refounding of “a new idea of universalism on a new, intercultural basis.” More than a decade after the beginning of the Bolo- gna Process in Europe, the author observes that these strong questions have received only weak answers to date but he imagines a future scenario in which stronger answers can be provided and the university can “rebuild its humanistic ideal in a new internationalist, solidary and intercultural way” (author).

INTRODUCTION nized by the European Union education ministers in 1999 aimed at reforming When we consider the European higher education in Europe and creating the European Higher Education Area university, or indeed the university world- 1 wide, the present is a moment in which it is (EHEA) . It is a period prone to intense as important to look back as to look forward. In the case of Europe, we are now 1 in the middle of the Bologna Process— Please visit the following site for more in- formation: http://www.ond.vlaanderen.be/ named after the Bologna Declaration orga- hogeronderwijs/bologna/ Boaventura de Sousa Santos is Professor of Sociology at the School of Economics, University of Coimbra (Portugal), Distinguished Legal Scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School and Global Legal Scholar at the Uni- versity of Warwick. He is Director of the Center for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra and Scientiﬁc Coordina- tor of the Permanent Observatory for Portuguese Justice. He has published widely on globalization, sociology of law and the state, epistemology, democracy, and human rights in Portuguese, Spanish, English, Italian, French and German. His most recent project—ALICE: Leading Europe to a New Way of Sharing the World Experiences—is funded by an Advanced Grant of the European Research Council. The project was initiated in 2011 and will continue for the next ﬁve years. This article is based on a keynote address delivered by the author at the meeting on the occasion of the XXII Anniversary of the Magna Charta Universitatum, held at the University of Bologna, on September 16, 2010.

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fluctuations between positive and negative The generalized crisis of modern solutions evaluations, between a sense that it is either has thereby brought with it the crisis of the too late or too early to achieve the intended university. After the Second World War, the results. In my view, such intense fluctua- early 1970s was a period of intense reform- tions in analysis and evaluation are a sign ist impulses worldwide. In most cases, the that everything remains open, that failure student movements of the late 1960s and and success loom equally on the horizon, early 1970s were the motive behind them. and that it is up to us to make one or the In the past forty years, however, for differ- other happen. The great philosopher Ernst ent but convergent reasons, in various parts Bloch wrote that by each hope there is of the world the university has become, always a coffin: Heil and Unheil. Though it rather than a solution for societal problems, is our main objective to focus on the Euro- an additional problem. pean university, it would be foolish not to As far as the university is concerned, think that the challenges facing the Euro- the problem may be formulated in this pean university today are to be found in all way: the university is being confronted continents, however different the reasons, with strong questions for which it has so far the arguments, or the proposed solutions provided only weak answers. Strong ques- may be. tions are those questions that go to the roots In general we can assert that the of the historical identity and vocation of the university is undergoing—as much as the university in order to question not so much rest of contemporary societies—a period of the details of the future of the university paradigmatic transition. This transition can but rather whether the university, as we be characterized in the following way: we know it, has indeed a future. They are, face modern problems for which there are no therefore, questions that arouse a particular modern solutions. Very succinctly, our kind of perplexity. Weak answers take the modern problems are the fulfillment of the future of the university for granted. The ideals of the French Revolution: liberté, egal- reforms they call for end up being an invi- ité, fraternité. In the past two hundred years tation to immobilism. They fail to abate the we have not been able to fulfill such objec- perplexity caused by the strong questions tives in Europe, let alone elsewhere. The and may, in fact, even increase it. Indeed, solutions designed to fulfill them—I mean: they assume that the perplexity is pointless. scientific and technological progress; As proposed and further investigated formal and instrumental rationality; the below, I submit that we must take up the modern bureaucratic state; the recognition strong questions and transform the of class, race and gender divisions and perplexity they cause into a positive energy discriminations; the institutionalization of both to deepen and to reorient the reformist social conflict raised by them through movement. The perplexity results from the democratic processes, development of fact that we are before an open field of national cultures and national identities, contradictions in which there is an unfin- secularism and laicism; and so on and so ished and unregulated competition among forth—have not been able to deliver the different possibilities. Such possibilities objectives so strenuously struggled for. The open space for political and institutional modern university, particularly from mid- innovation by showing the magnitude of 19th century onwards, has been a key what is at stake. component of such solutions. It was actually in light of them that institutional autonomy, academic freedom and social responsibility were originally designed.

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STRONG QUESTIONS ereeing practices continue to significantly determine scholarship evaluations and re- Let me provide some samples of the cruitment and promotional opportunities strong questions facing the university at in universities world-wide? Will they go on the beginning of the 21st century. Without doing that in such a way that it promotes claiming to be exhaustive, I select twelve narrowly defined, monoculturally generat- such questions. ed conceptions of good scholarship, meth- The first strong question is this: Given odological rigor and theoretical soundness, the fact that the university was part and as it happens, in general, today? Or, on the parcel of the building of the modern nation- contrary, will the new technologies of pro- state—by training its elites and bureau- duction and dissemination of knowledge cracy, and by providing the knowledge and (internet/ebook/ejournal/elibraries, etc.) ideology underlying the national project— undermine the traditional, elitist practices how is the mission of the university to be of gate-keeping in scientific and academic refounded in a globalized world, a world in journal and book publishing, making it which state sovereignty is increasingly a possible to pursue new, creative, and more shared sovereignty or simply a choice egalitarian, culturally sensitive, and para- among different kinds of interdependence, digmatically open-minded practices of and in which the very idea of a national peer reviewing? project has become an obstacle to dominant Third strong question: At its best, the conceptions of global development? Is the modern university has been a locus of free global university a possible answer? If so, and independent thinking and of celebra- how many such global universities are tion of diversity, even when subjected to viable? What happens to the large number the narrow boundaries of the disciplines, of the remaining ones? If global elites are to whether in the sciences or the humanities. be trained in global universities, where can Bearing in mind that for the past 30 years be found in society the allies and the social the tendency to transform the truth value of base for the non-global universities? Which knowledge into the ‘market truth’ value of kinds of relationships between global and knowledge has become increasingly nonglobal universities will there be? Will strong, could there be any future for the focus on ranking contribute to the cohe- nonconformist, critical, heterodox, non- sion of the European higher education area marketable knowledge, and for professors, or, on the contrary, to its segmentation researchers and students pursuing it? If through unfair competition and the rise of yes, what will be its impact upon the crite- commercial internationalism? ria of excellence and inter-university A second strong question may be for- competitiveness? If not, can we still call mulated as follows: The idea of a knowl- university an institution that only produces edge society implies that knowledge is competent conformists and never compe- everywhere; what is the impact of this idea tent rebels, and that only regards knowl- on a modern university which was created edge as a commodity and never as a public on the premise that it was an island of good? knowledge in a society of ignorance? What Fourth strong question: The modern is the place or the specificity of the univer- university has been from the beginning a sity as a center of knowledge production transnational institution at the service of and diffusion in a society with many other national societies. At its best, the modern centers of production and diffusion of university is an early model for interna- knowledge? Will academic review and ref- tional flows of ideas, teachers, students and books. We live in a globalized world but

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not in a homogeneously globalized world. ideas and noble ideals so easily? Not only are there different logics moving Sixth strong question: Job prestige goes globalized flows but also different power together with job qualification and scarcity. relations behind the distribution of the The modern university has been at the core costs and benefits of globalization. There is of the social production of high-powered transnational greed as there is transna- job qualifications. If rankings manage to tional solidarity. Which side will the fragment the European and the future university be on? Will it become a transna- global university system, which jobs and tional corporation or a transnational coop- which qualifications will be generated by erative or non-profit organization? Is there which universities? The world system is a contradiction between our emphasis on built on an integrated hierarchy of core, cultural and social development and the peripheral and semi-peripheral countries. emphasis of some European politicians and The current financial and economic crisis powerful think-tanks on economic devel- has shown that the same hierarchy holds in opment and the university’s contribution Europe and, as such, social cohesion is to the global competitiveness of European showing its dark side: it exists on the condi- businesses? Why have some major reform tion that the structural hierarchy not be efforts outside Europe chosen the slogan: affected, that countries remain as core, “Neither Bologna nor Harvard”? peripheral or semiperipheral, without Fifth strong question: In the long run, moving either up or down in the hierarchy. the idea of Europe is only sustainable as the Not necessarily coincident with location in Europe of ideas. Now, the university has the hierarchy of the countries in which they historically been one of the main pillars of are located, are we going to have periph- the Europe of ideas, however questionable eral, semi-peripheral and central universi- such ideas may have been. This has been ties? Will the Bologna Process rigidify such possible by granting to the university a hierarchies or make them more liquid? degree of institutional autonomy unimag- Depending on the geopolitical distribution inable in any other state institution. The of rankings, will hierarchy among universi- dark side of this autonomy has been social ties contribute to accentuate or rather to isolationism, lack of transparency, organi- attenuate the hierarchies among European zational inefficiency, social prestige discon- countries? nected from scholarly achievement. In its Seventh strong question: As the univer- original design, the Bologna Process was to sity diversifies the degrees of qualifica- put an end to this dark side without signif- tion—first, second, third cycle and icantly affecting the university’s autonomy. postdoctoral degrees—social illiteracy Is this design being carried out without increases in the lower degrees, thus justify- perverse results? Is the Bologna Process a ing the greater value of higher degrees. break with the negative aspects of the tradi- This is in fact a spiral movement. Has it tional university, or is it a brilliant exercise exhausted its development potential? How in reshuffling inertias and recycling old many more cycles are we going to have in vices? Is it possible to standardize proce- the future? Are we creating endless illiter- dures and criteria across such different acy in the same process that we create university cultures without killing diver- endless knowledge? Will peripheral and sity and innovation? Is it possible to semi-peripheral universities be charged develop transparency, mobility and recip- with solving the illiteracy problem, while rocal recognition while preserving institu- the core universities will have the monop- tional and cultural diversity? Why are oly of highly qualified knowledge? bureaucrats taking control of the good Eighth strong question: Can the univer-

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THE UNIVERSITY AT A CROSSROADS 11 sity retain its specificity and relative auton- very often used its coercive power to omy while being governed by market impose market imperatives to the reluctant imperatives and employment demands? universities. Is the Bologna Process a Given the highly problematic validity of creative response to neoliberal, one-dimen- cost-benefit analysis in the field of research sional demands or, on the contrary, a way and development, will the university be of imposing them through a transnational allowed to assume certain costs in the European process that neutralizes national expectation of uncertain benefits, as it has resistance? always done in the past? What will happen Tenth strong question: The European to knowledge that has not and should not universities and many other universities have market value? Regarding marketable around the world that followed their model knowledge which impact on it is to be were instrumental in disseminating a Euro- expected if such knowledge is going to be centric view of the world, a view powerful valued exclusively according to its market enough (in both intellectual and military value? What is the future of social responsi- terms) to claim universal validity. This bility if extension is reduced to an expedi- claim did not involve ignoring the cultural, ent or burden to raise financial resources? social and spiritual differences of the non- What will happen to the imperative of European world. On the contrary, it making the university relevant to the needs entailed knowing such differences, even of society, taking for granted that such though subjected to Eurocentric purposes, needs are not reducible to market needs whether the romantic celebration of the and may actually contradict them? Other or the colonial subjugation and Ninth strong question: The university destruction of the Other. In both cases, (or at least the public university) has histor- knowing the Other was at the service of ically been embedded in the three pillars of showing the superiority and therefore the modern social regulation—the state, the universality of European culture; a market and civil society; however, the detailed, colonial or imperial knowledge of balance of their presence in the structure the Other was required. My university, for and functioning of the university has instance, the University of Coimbra, varied in the course of time. Indeed, the founded in 1290, contributed immensely to modern European university started in the development of knowledge committed Bologna as a civil society initiative. Later to the colonial enterprise. The quality and on, the state strengthened its presence, intensity of the homework done by the which became dominant from mid-19th missionaries before embarking overseas century onwards, and in the colonies are astounding, all the more astounding particularly after they became indepen- when we compare them with the home- dent. In the last 30 years the market took work done by World Bank and Interna- the lead in structuring the university life. In tional Monetary Fund (IMF) executives a few decades the university went from when they go around evangelizing the producing knowledge and professionals world with the neoliberal orthodoxy in for the market, to becoming itself a market, their heads and pockets. Of their knowl- the market of tertiary education, and edge claims it cannot be said what the great finally, at least according to powerful leader of the African Liberation move- visionaries, to being run like a market orga- ments, Amilcar Cabral, said about colonial nization, a business organization. Since knowledge: “The search for such knowl- then, civil society concerns have been easily edge, in spite of its unilateral, subjective confused with market imperatives or and very often unfair character, does subordinated to them, and the state has contribute to enriching the human and

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social sciences in general.”2 models of development and civilizatory The eleventh question is this: Is the paradigms, or rather to serve as acritically university prepared to recognize that the and as efficiently as possible the dominant understanding of the world by far exceeds model decided by the powers that be and the Western understanding of the world? Is evaluated by the new supervisors of the the university prepared to refound the idea university output at their service? At the of universalism on a new, intercultural international level, given the conflict basis? We live in a world of norms in between local conceptions of autonomous conflict and many of them are resulting in development and the global development war and violence. Cultural differences, new model imposed by the rules of the WTO, and old collective identities, antagonistic and given the fact that the European states political, religious and moral conceptions are donor states, will the European univer- and convictions are today more visible than sity contribute to a dialogue among differ- ever, both outside and inside Europe. There ent models of development? Or will it is no alternative to violence other than rather provide intellectual legitimacy to readiness to accept the incompleteness of unilateral impositions by the donor states, all cultures and identities, including our as in the colonial period? own, arduous negotiation, and credible intercultural dialogue. If Europe—against THE PRESENT AS THE FUTURE’S its own past—is to become a beacon of PAST peace, respect for diversity and intercultural dialogue, the university will certainly have a central role to play. Are the Euro- In my view, one decade after the begin- pean universities being reformed having ning of the Bologna Process, we have so far such role in mind as a strategic objective of been providing only weak answers to these their future? strong questions. The twelfth question, probably the The weakest of them all are the nonan- strongest of them all, is the following: swers, the silences, the taken-for-granted- Modern universities have been both a ness of the new common sense about the product and a producer of specific models mission of the university. This is a situation of development. When the Bologna Process that we should overcome as soon as possi- started there were more certainties about ble. The danger is to convert really medio- the European project of development than cre achievements into brilliant leaps there are today. The compound effect of forward, to disguise resignation under the multiple crises—the financial and mask of consensus, to orient the university economic crisis, the environmental and towards a future in which there is no future energetic crisis, the crisis of the European for the university. social model, the migration crisis, the secu- In my mind, we are at a juncture which rity crisis—points to a civilizatory crisis or our complexity scientists would character- paradigmatic change. The question is: In ize as a situation of bifurcation. Minimal such a tumultuous time, is the university’s movements in one or other direction may serenity possible? And, if possible, is it produce major and irreversible changes. desirable? Is the Bologna Process equip- Such is the magnitude of our responsibility. ping the university to enter the debate on We all know that we never act upon the future; we act upon the present in light of 2 Cabral, Amílcar (1982), “The role of Cul- our anticipations or visions of how the ture in the Struggle for Independence,” in Aqui- future will look like. The strong questions no de Bragança and Immanuel Wallerstein indicate that there is no single, consensual (eds.), The African Liberation Reader, 197-203.

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THE UNIVERSITY AT A CROSSROADS 13 anticipation or vision to be taken for has unveiled the dangers of creating a granted, and that is why the questions single currency without putting together invite deep reflection. public and fiscal policies and state budgets, I suggest that we are before two alter- it may well happen that, in the long run, the native visions and that their co-presence is Bologna Process turns out to be the euro of the source of the tensions running through European universities. Here are the fore- our university system today. They both seeable consequences: the principles of invite two opposing imaginary visions of a solidary university internationalism and retrospective evaluation of the reforms respect for cultural diversity will be under way. That is, they look from the discarded in the name of the efficiency of future at our present. the European university market and According to one of them, our reform competition; the weaker universities (gath- efforts were indeed a true reform, as they ered in the weaker countries) will be succeeded in preparing the university to dumped by the university rating agencies confront the challenges of the 21st century into the ranking garbage bin. Though effectively—by diversifying its mission claiming to be rigorous, university ranking without giving away its authenticity, by will be, in a great measure, arbitrary and strengthening institutional autonomy, subjective. Most universities will suffer the academic freedom and social responsibility consequences of fast decrease of public under the new and very complex condi- funding; many universities will be forced tions of Europe and of the world at large. to close down. Thus, the European university was able to As is happening in other levels of edu- rebuild its humanistic ideal in a new inter- cation, the wealthy students and their par- nationalist, solidary and intercultural way. ents will search throughout many countries According to the other, imaginary, for the best quality/price ratio, as they are retrospective vision, the Bologna Process already doing in the commercial malls was, on the contrary, a counterreformation, which universities are also becoming, as it blocked the reforms that the universi- while the poor students and their parents ties in different European countries were will be confined to the poor universities undertaking individually, and each one existing in their poor countries or neigh- according to its specific conditions to face bourhoods. The internal impact will be the above-mentioned challenges; further- overwhelming: the relation between more, the Bologna Process forced a conver- research and teaching, highly advertised by gence beyond a reasonable level. It did this Bologna, will be a very paradise for the uni- with the purpose of disabling the univer- versities at the top of the ranking (a scarce sity from the mechanisms that would allow minority) and perfect hell for the large it to resist against the business and market majority of the universities and their schol- imperatives in the same manner as it ars. The commodification criteria will resisted in the past against the imperatives reduce the value of the different areas of of religion and later of the state. knowledge to their market price. Latin, In order not to end this essay on a poetry or philosophy will be kept only if pessimistic note, I will start by briefly some informatic macdonald recognizes in detailing the second retrospective vision them any measure of usefulness. Univer- and then turning to the first one. The sity administrators will be the first ones to second vision, the vision of the counterre- internalize the classifying orgy, an orgy of formation, displays before us a dystopic objective maniacs and indicators maniacs; scenario with the following features. they will excel in creating income by expro- As we realize that the financial crisis priating the students’ families or robbing

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the faculty of their personal lives and lei- First, the Bologna Process was able to sure. They will exert all their creativity to identify and solve most of the problems destroy university creativity and diversity, that the pre-Bologna university was suffer- to standardize all that is standardizeable ing and unable to confront, such as: estab- and to discredit or discard all that is not. lished inertias that paralyzed any reformist The faculty will be proletarianized by the effort; endogamic preferences that created very means of educational production of aversion to innovation and challenge; insti- which they are supposedly owners—that tutional authoritarianism under the guise is, teaching, assessment, research. They will of scholarly authority; nepotism under the end up being zombies of forms, objectives, guise of merit; elitism under the guise of evaluations that are impeccable as to for- excellence; political control under the guise mal rigor but necessarily fraudulent in sub- of democratic participation; neo-feudalism stance, workpackages, deliverables, milestones, under the guise of department or school bargains of mutual citation to improve the autonomy; fear of being evaluated under indices, evaluations of where-you-publish- the guise of academic freedom; low scien- what-I-couldn’t-care-less, careers conceived tific production justified as an heroic resis- of as exhilarating but flattened at the low tance to stupid terms of reference or positions in most situations. For the comments by referees; generalized admin- younger faculty the academic freedom will istrative inefficiency under the guise of be a cruel joke. The students will be as mas- respect for tradition. ters of their learning as they will be slaves Second, in so doing the Bologna of their indebtedness for the rest of their Process, rather than discrediting and lives. They will enjoy autonomy and free throwing overboard the self-evaluation choice in curricular matters with no idea of and reformist efforts that were being the logic and limits of the choices presented undertaken by the most dedicated and to them, and will be guided, in personal- innovative professors and administrators, ized fashion, toward a mass alternative of provided them with a new framework and professional employment or of professional powerful institutional support, to the unemployment. Tertiary education will be extent that the Bologna Process could finally liberalized according to the rules of become an endogenous energy rather than the World Trade Organization. an outside imposition. In order to succeed As I said, none of the above has to in this, the Bologna Process managed to happen. There is another retrospective combine convergence with diversity and vision, and in our hearts and minds we difference, and developed mechanisms of very much hope that it will prevail. But for positive discrimination to allow for the it to happen, we should start by recogniz- different national university systems to ing and denouncing that the supposed new cooperate and compete among themselves normalcy of the state of affairs in the above in fair terms. description is in fact a moral aberration and Third, the Bologna Process never let will entail the end of the university as we itself be taken over by the so-called interna- know it. Let us consider now the other tional tertiary education experts with the retrospective vision, the vision which, look- capacity of transforming subjective, arbi- ing from the future into our present, evalu- trary preferences into self-evident truths ates the Bologna Process as a true reform and inevitable public policies. It kept in that changed the European university sight two powerful intellectual views of the deeply and for the better. Such vision will mission of the university produced in the emphasize the following features of our early years of the past century and current undertakings. unequivocally took sides between the two.

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One was formulated by Ortega y Gasset strengthen the relationship between teach- and Bertrand Russell, two intellectuals ing and research, and, while rewarding with very different political ideas, but who excellence, it made sure that the commu- converged in denouncing the political nity of university teachers would not be instrumentalization of the university; the divided between two stratified segments: a other, formulated by Martin Heidegger in small group of first class university citizens his inaugural lecture as rector of Freiburg with abundant money, light teaching loads University in 1933, in which he invited the and other good conditions to carry out university to contribute to the preservation research, on the one hand, and, on the of the German strengths of soil and blood. other, a large group of second class univer- The Bologna Process unequivocally sity citizens enslaved by long hours of adopted the first and refused the second. teaching and tutoring with little access to Fourth, the reformists never confused research funds only because they were the market with civil society or the commu- employed by the wrong universities or nity and urged the universities to keep a were interested in supposedly wrong broad conception of social responsibility, topics. It managed to combine higher selec- encouraging action research as well as tivity in recruitment and strict accountabil- extension projects aimed at bettering the ity in the use of teaching time and research lives of the more vulnerable social groups funds with a concern for really equal trapped in systemic social inequality and opportunities. It conceived of the rankings discrimination, be they women, the unem- as the salt in food: too little makes it unpal- ployed, young and elderly people, migrant atable; too much kills all the flavors. More- workers, ethnic and religious minorities, over, at a given point it decided that what and so on. had happened in international rankings Fifth, the reform Process made it very elsewhere could be applied to the univer- clear that universities are centers of sity system as well. Accordingly, as the production of knowledge in the broadest GDP index exists today side by side with possible sense. Accordingly, it promoted the index of human development of the interculturality, heterodoxy and critical UNDP, the Bologna Process managed to engagement in the best liberal tradition insert internal plurality in the ranking which the pre-Bologna Process university systems. had abandoned in the name of political or Seventh, the Bologna Process ended up economic correctness. In the same vein, it abandoning the once fashionable concept encouraged internal scientific pluralism of human capital after concluding that the and, most importantly, granted equal universities should form full human beings dignity and importance to knowledge with and full citizens and not just human capital market value and knowledge with no subjected to market fluctuations like any possible market value. Moreover, the other capital. This had a decisive impact on reformists understood clearly all along that the curricula and on the evaluation of in the field of research and development, performances. Furthermore, the Bologna cost-benefit analysis is a very crude instru- Process managed to convince the European ment and may kill innovation instead of Union and the European states that they promoting it. In fact, the history of technol- should be financially more generous with ogy amply shows that the innovations with the public universities not because of highest instrumental value were made corporatist pressures but rather because the possible with no attention to cost/benefit investment in an excellent public univer- calculations. sity system is probably the best way of Sixth, the Bologna Process managed to investing in the future of a Europe of ideas,

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the only way for Europe to remain truly European. Finally, the Bologna Process expanded exponentially the internationalization of the European university but took good care to promote other forms of internationalism than commercial internationalism. In this way, the European area of higher education ceased to be a threat to the academic freedom and intellectual autonomy of universities throughout the world to become a loyal and powerful ally in keeping the ideas of academic freedom, institutional autonomy and knowledge diversity well and alive in a world threatened by the pensée unique of market imperatives. I have presented you with two alternative visions of our future. There is no doubt in my mind that all of us here wish that our future be molded by the retrospective vision I just described. It is in our hands to make that happen.

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