European Mind & Metabolism Association

- EMMA entirely supports the efforts that envision a unified European Higher Education Area (EHEA). The EHEA would replace diverse national university models with a single "European" model, with programs and course credits valid across all of Europe. Now known as the Bologna Process (after the city in which the first planning and evaluation meetings took place, in 1999) the plan for an EHEA outlined three cycles of academic degrees:

1) a three-year European (first cycle) bachelor’s degree,

2) a two-year European (second cycle) master degree,

3) a three-year European (third cycle) specialization or doctoral degree.

Today, the Bologna Process encompasses 45 countries, includes doctoral programs, and anticipates a working EHEA by 2010. This process is unfortunately far from completion, since academic degrees released by EU member States are named in many different ways, often do not mention what cycle they belong to, and are sometimes hard to get recognized when students and researchers move from State to State within the EU.

- are named in the same way, or in an easily understandable, reciprocally recognised way,

- do clearly mention what cycle they belong to, and provide reference to previous completed cycles,

- are immediately valid, with no need of being recognized, when students move from State to State within the EU.

It should be possible to obtain a bilingual diploma, where legally-valid translation into another EU language (of choice) is present. In addition, that translation should render a legally-valid degree when presented to Academic authorities of another member State.

A major obstacle and source of confusion, in the opinion of EMMA, is that the formulation of sentences written in the diplomas vary a lot from country to country so that it is really uneasy, even for people who know foreign language(s) and despite any translation into a national language, to understand what the doploma really states about itself !!!

Here we propose few essential elements that should be clearly mentioned in the diplomas to make their validity unequivocally understandable:

1) Releasing Institution, and its status of public recognisement by Ministry for University / Education,

2) Named with cycle (e.g. BAC first cycle / MASTER second cycle / DOC third cycle),  

3) Title of Thesis / Dissertation with name of Mentor / Supervisor and members of jury,

4) Clear reference (with dates) to previously completed cycles and to year(s) dedicated to studies leading to this present diploma.

5) Indication of impact factor (in case of publications) and/or similar indicators (e.g. mean mark got in examinations) reached by the candidate (OPTIONAL).

Clearly, these same elements may well be declared by the candidate who owns a diploma not specifying them. The problem is that, after many many years from diplomas, these elements may be forgotten or not easy to retrieve. This is why in EMMA's opinion these elements should be integrally written in the text printed on diplomas !!!

This is the only way to ease within-EU mobility of students and researchers.