Fine Second Place to Denmark

Denmark is at the very forefront in terms of meeting the objectives of the European collaboration on higher education.

At the European ministerial conference near Brussels today, Tuesday 28 April, the respective rankings of the participating countries' efforts were presented:

Denmark comes in second after Scotland and before Sweden, which is no. 3 among the participating 46 countries.

In the joint declaration of the ministerial conference, the member countries set new goals for their collaboration up to 2020. Among other things, the countries should:

• set ambitious goals for the number of students, researchers and teachers studying abroad,
• set specific goals for equal access to higher education, thus making an effort to break the link between social origin and educational attainment, and
• ensure that higher education will give students the relevant competencies necessary in a changing job market.

– I am glad that we have agreed on new goals for our collaboration up to 2020. We would like to ensure better mobility for students and researchers and make the European education programmes more attractive to students and researchers from other parts of the world. These are significant initiatives to strengthen Europe as a knowledge region, says Science Minister Helge Sander.

In Denmark, the so-called Bologna process has materialised in various ways, including a new educational structure with three levels – bachelor, master and Ph.D.