Università ed Europa : un felice connubio attraverso i secoli (con qualche ombra...)

The university is a European institution, a "bridge" able to bring together distant peoples and create the conditions to allow them to walk together side by side. It's the job of the historian to rediscover the role universities had in the middle ages when, through their schools, they were able to shape some of the basic characteristics of European identity, thanks also to the cultural exchanges between teachers and students. This distant experience – based on a uniformity of teaching methods and programs – has led the European Union, from the early 1970s, to try and find ways of bringing the various teaching systems of the member states closer together. This aim was then put into practice via: a) setting up educational exchange programs abroad; b) creating skill networks in academic and professional fields; c) creating systems for recognizing academic and professional qualifications. The aim of promoting the steady convergence of university systems and, by 2010, a European Education Space remains a key objective of the 45 European states who are members of the "Bologna Process".