Topic: Values

“Education should produce knowing heads and honest hearts”

Thomas Jefferson

It is a general view that in addition to academic development and professional training, higher education should encourage personal growth and social responsibility, educating students as citizens of global society so that they uphold standards of civility and civic responsibility.

Values, ethics and moral responsibilities have for centuries shaped the European “idea of a university”. They have also been part of higher education in other regions. Nowadays, they again need to be reasserted in the actual context of research, teaching and governance in higher education.

The Forum reflected on existing experiences concerning the ways and means to complement pragmatic dominant approaches to higher education with humanistic concerns. In this regard it is going to reflect on main postulates of the Bucharest Declaration on Ethical Values and Principles of Higher Education in the Europe Region which contains a call for suitable and effective means “to assure the balance between the nature of higher education as a public good and the commercialization of its services that preserve the core values of the academic ethos; to promote the system of governance of higher education institutions that allows for the assertions of the values of the collegiate model of institutional management and administration; to elaborate and enforce at institutional, national and European level codes of ethical standards for regulating scientific research that are both disciplinary and multidisciplinary oriented and to promote international cooperation on these kind of issues”.

During the Bologna Process Official Seminar on The Cultural Heritage and Academic Values of the European University and the Attractiveness of the European Higher Education Area participants stated clearly that “the core values of institutional autonomy, academic freedom, collegiality/community and cooperation/exchange among institutions should be affirmed as necessary components of the European university’s competitive advantage in the global market place and thus the instruments at the service of society”.

The Forum acknowledged views and commitments made by the international community, taking the discussions further and focusing on new values built in and shaped by higher education institutions today and the ways and means by which universities and academia can contribute to building of wisdom society.

Discussion paper:

Andrei Marga: "Values of the Universities"