The Bologna Meeting marked the beginning of substantial changes in the field of higher education. The Bologna Declaration identified six action lines: adoption of a system of easily readable and comparable degrees, adoption of a system essentially based on two cycles, establishment of a system of credits, promotion of mobility, promotion of European cooperation in quality assurance and promotion of the European dimension in higher education. Three more (lifelong learning, higher education institutions and students and promoting the attractiveness of the European Higher Education Area) were added in Prague in May 2001. In September 2003, in Berlin, the next consecutive meeting of the European Ministers took place. It analysed what had been achieved after the Prague meeting and marked the main activities for the future 20 months, in view of the next meeting which is to take place in Bergen, Norway in May, 2005. The main objective of the Bologna declaration and the resolutions of the above-mentioned meetings are that by the year 2010 the so-called European Higher Education Area (EHEA) be established and promoted all through Europe
A series of existing projects under the SOCRATES programme are linked to the accomplishment of the action lines addressed in the Bologna Declaration. One of the large scale projects in this aspect is the project titled "Tuning educational structures in Europe" (Phase I and Phase II). The Tuning Project aims to harmonize education structures in Europe, and more specifically the nature of the bachelor's and master's degrees. The focus is mainly on general and subject-specific competencies (or learning objectives) in a number of selected disciplines.
Another project, which places the fundamentals of the current proposal and also aims at the implementation of some of the action lines, identified in the Bologna Declaration is the Thematic Network "European Computing Education and Training". Over the last three years the consortium developed comparable professional standards, curricula and syllabi for Bachelors and Masters in the field of Computing, emphasizing on the main specialities: Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering and Information Systems. It also developed a series of WEB based teaching materials and established a Virtual European Department of Computing. The results achieved under the project (http://ecet.ecs.ru.acad.bg/) are one of the main reasons for the consortium to submit a new proposal aimed at searching for other forms to expand further the activities of the Virtual European Department of Computing.
Another milestone, based on the proposal of the European Commission, was the decision to establish a European Research and Innovation Area (ERIA), the main objective of which is the creation of a better overall framework and conditions for research.
These two "Areas" (EHEA & ERIA) are firmly connected to each other and have to be addressed as one entity. The logic is that EHEA prepares the human resources, who are the main engine of ERIA. These specialists are taught by the universities in the so-called "third" cycle of education - the doctoral degree which we hope is going to be on the agenda of the Bologna Process.
Bearing in mind both facts, the consortium decided to submit a proposal for a project entitled European Thematic Network for Doctoral Education in Computing ( ETN DEC ).
