Bologna and the MEng: ‘Sleepwalking into Unknown and Unpredictable Territory’

Abstract

The background to the Bologna process is that there was considerable concern in the 1990s at governmental level in the EU nation states over economically unsustainable, grossly inefficient higher education systems. The Bologna process of three cycles of higher education, the first being the ‘mobility degree’ (Bachelors level) after three years of study, the second (Masters level) after a further two years of study, and a third cycle of postgraduate study as yet undefined, has received widespread agreement across now 45 nation states, and has gained worldwide interest. For certain sections of UK higher education, such as engineering, science, architecture and medicine, where the degree cycles do not fit with the Bologna cycles, the Bologna process presents significant diffiulties. This paper explores those difficulties, and possible responses, none of which are themselves without difficulty.