Conferentie over de modernisering van hoger onderwijs in Europa (en)

On 24^th-25^th October, under the auspices of the Polish Presidency, a conference devoted to the modernisation of Europe’s higher education is being held in Sopot. Professor Zbigniew Marciniak, Deputy Minister of Science and Higher Education, is to open it.

The Sopot conference is the most important event of the Polish Presidency to implement its priority — the modernisation of European higher education.

Some 4000 universities and other institutions of higher learning currently operate in Europe. Some of them rank among the world’s best academic institutions. Not all of them, however, have kept up with economic and social change.

Conference participants will discuss the most important challenges facing Europe’s higher education sector: the employability of graduates, adapting curricula to job-market requirements, cooperation between science and the economy and the competitiveness of European scientific research. Also on the agenda for discussion are the solutions the EU countries should introduce to carry out the resolutions of the Europa 2020 Strategy. This states that in the course of a decade the number of those in the 30-34 age group who have completed higher education in Europe should amount to 40 percent. According to the latest predictions, by 2020 35 percent of all jobs in Europe will require higher education.

The conference will be opened by Professor Zbigniew Marciniak, Deputy Minister of Science and Higher Education, and Jan Truszczynski, the European Commission’s Director-General for Education and Culture. Participants will include delegates representing EU Member States and outstanding European experts in the field of higher education.

Professor Marciniak will present the key elements of Poland’s higher-education reform which came into force on 1^st October this year. It fully reflects the European Commission’s recommendations on the direction which the modernisation of universities should take.

The conference will allude to the Communication on the Modernisation of Higher Education Systems, published by the European Commission on 20^thSeptember 2011. This document constitutes part of the EU strategy on employment and economic growth.