Abstract:

After a political agreement among the members of the European Union we have just launched the European Higher Education Area. The convergence of European higher education will allow for greater mobility of students and teachers among universities, and facilitate the creation of a genuine European job market. It is hoped that all this will increase the cohesion among the countries of the European Union, and create a more united Europe.

This academic revolution entails a pedagogical innovation and an effort to overcome research limitations. All this tries to produce better qualified professionals to satisfy labor market demands. But, is it really a new idea to promote the free movement of students in Europe? Are our research difficulties a recent problem? And above all, are the new teaching methods that we are encouraging really new? As discussed in the following lines, the answer is no. From the very first conceptions of a united Europe, the importance of student exchanges was already pointed out. Many of our current research limitations were already described about a century ago. And finally, many of our new teaching methods were already in use over a hundred years ago, in the Free Institution of Teaching, led by Francisco Giner de los Ríos.

Keywords:

European Higher Education Area, pedagogy, research impediments.