The Emergence and Design of a Transnational Policy Tool: Monitoring the Fundamental Values of Higher Education in the European Higher Education Area

This chapter analyses the emergence, design, characteristics, and function of a new monitoring mechanism put forward as part of a larger undertaking in the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) meant to safeguard the fundamental values of higher education. This monitoring mechanism is characterized as a policy tool of a transnational nature. Values have underscored the Bologna Process since its launch in 1999. However, in response to the crisis of academic freedom, a new approach to what is now designated as “the fundamental values of higher education” emerged after 2015. This development marked the advent of a transnational policy framework comprising (1) the identification and formal adoption for the first time by all EHEA members (at the time, 49 countries and the European Commission) of a defined list of six fundamental values for higher education; (2) the development and formal adoption of new and shared EHEA-wide conceptual references for these values; (3) the adoption of concrete government-level commitments to protect and promote, in the higher education systems of all members, the fundamental values of higher education as jointly defined in the EHEA; and (4) the decision to develop and employ an EHEA-wide mechanism for monitoring the implementation of the commitments regarding the fundamental values of higher education.