This essay discusses the changes promoted in European universities by the ‘Bologna Process’ and the ‘European Higher Education Area’. Through an analysis of the main policy documents and mechanisms, the paper demonstrates that the European Higher Education Area is designed to dismantle academic autonomy across the continent. Before setting out to examine this transnational policy process, the paper specifies in its first part the meaning of academic autonomy – a particular European creation, as it argues – through an overview of the historical material.
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