A new step towards a European area of higher education: European Universities to "tune" their study programmes

Brussels, 30 May 2002

The European Commission will host a big conference gathering over 100 European universities, student associations, professional bodies and employees on Friday 31 May 2002 in Brussels, drawing to a close the first phase of the Socrates pilot project "Tuning Educational Structures in Europe". European Commissioner Viviane Reding will open the conference and deliver a speech on the EU contribution to the European Higher Education Area.

Viviane Reding said: «Universities should pool their resources in order to make European higher education more attractive, not only for its own citizens but also for students from other continents».

"Tuning Educational Structures in Europe" is a two-year pilot project co-ordinated by the University of Groningen, the Netherlands, and the University of Deusto, Spain. Its main purpose is to identify knowledge skills necessary for university graduates to be employable at European level, in seven different fields: Mathematics, Geology, Business, History, Educational Sciences, Chemistry and Physics.

University professors involved in the project have discovered that, despite different cultures, languages and teaching methods, the competences (skills and knowledge) expected of young graduates are very similar across Europe.

The Tuning project builds on the Socrates-Erasmus Thematic Networks which are large associations gathering university faculties, departments and social partners in all subject areas.

The project has generated great interest among the European Higher Education Institutions and, successfully gathered wide consensus.

"Tuning" has found its "raison d'être" within the so-called "Bologna process" (launched in 1999 with the "Bologna Declaration" signed by Education Ministries from more than thirty countries), aiming to build a European Higher Education Area by 2010 and providing citizens with high quality lifelong learning without frontiers. The conference will show the results of the project, and set a path to follow "TUNING" European higher education in the forthcoming Ministerial meeting "Berlin 2003", the next big stock-taking conference of the Bologna process.

The meeting will take place at 10.00 on Friday 31 May 2002 in the «Charlemagne» building (room 3) and will be open to the press.

For more information:

Tuning project web-site: http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/education /tuning.html

Higher Education in Europe and the Bologna process: http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/education /higher.html

SOCRATES programme: http://europa.eu.int/comm/education/soc rates.html

DN: IP/02/779 Date: 30/05/2002