Between harmonization and unification in the European higher education area: scenarios for the European university initiative

Abstract This article explores future scenarios regarding the integration of European higher education (HE) in light of the European Universities Initiative which has been unfolding since 2017. Its aim is to understand potential development paths in light of the established intergovernmental Bologna Process, which has been diversified through international and supranational practices since its launch at the end of the 1990s. By way of European integration theories, we approach potential integration scenarios – a hitherto underutilized framework in HE studies. Our heuristic analysis of HE integration is based on secondary data; subsequently we construct and discuss four scenarios. Finally, we explore the implications of the scenarios from the perspective of the evaluation of the integration process of European HE.