Higher education reform experts : activity report 2016

The HERE activities under Erasmus+ were launched on a full scale from the start of 2015, following the designation of the individual experts for the period 2015-2017. In the same period, a service contract for supporting HERE activities was concluded with a consortium consisting of the University of Barcelona and the European University Association (EUA). This consortium (the "SPHERE team" - Support and Promotion for Higher Education Reform Experts) is responsible for organising international training events, providing experts for Technical Assistance Missions to the Partner Countries and maintaining a Virtual Community platform for communication, event organisation and dissemination of information among the HERE network. The 2016 activities showed a positive continuation of the work started in 2015, with a strong contribution of the HEREs in both national and international activities. At national level, in the Partner Countries, the teams organised almost 200 events, produced more than 80 articles or publications and contributed to the preparation of a number of legislative reforms and the drafting of new higher education policies and strategies. While only 12 of the Partner Countries concerned are signatories of the Bologna process, the focus of the activities was very much on Bologna type reforms, indicating a trend of voluntary convergence even in the nonsignatory countries.