Boaventura de Sousa Santos

October, 2010

We are now in the middle of the Bologna process that purports to bring about a profound reform of the European university. We are at a juncture which our complexity scientists would characterize as a situation of bifurcation. Minimal movements in one or other direction may produce major and irreversible changes. Such is the magnitude of our responsibility. We all know that we never act upon the future; we act upon the present in light of our anticipations or visions of how the future will look like. The text raises some strong questions and anticipates two alternative visions looking from the future into our present. According to the first one the Bologna process was a true reform that changed the European university deeply and for the better. According to the second vision, the Bologna process was counterreformation that destroyed the identity of the European university thus displaying before us a dystopic scenario.