The purpose of the Bologna Process (or Bologna Accords) is the creation of the European Higher Education Area by making academic degree standards and quality assurance standards more comparable and compatible throughout Europe, in particular under the Lisbon Recognition Convention. It is named after the place it was proposed, the University of Bologna, with the signing in 1999 of the Bologna declaration by Education Ministers from 29 European countries. It was opened up to other countries signatory to the European Cultural Convention of the Council of Europe; further governmental meetings have been held in Prague (2001), Berlin (2003), Bergen (2005), London (2007), and Leuven (2009).

Before the signing of the Bologna declaration, the Magna Charta Universitatum had been issued at a meeting of university rectors celebrating the 900th anniversary of the University of Bologna – and thus of European universities – in 1988. One year before the Bologna declaration, education ministers Claude Allegre (France), Jürgen Rüttgers (Germany), Luigi Berlinguer (Italy) and Baroness Blackstone (UK) signed the Sorbonne declaration in Paris 1998, committing themselves to "harmonising the architecture of the European Higher Education system".

Bologna (Italian pronunciation: [boˈloɲɲa] ( listen); Emilian: Bulåggna pronounced [buˈləɲɲa]; Latin: Bononia) is the principal city (capital) of the Emilia-Romagna Region in Northern Italy. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history, art, cuisine, music, and culture. It is the seventh largest city in terms of population in Italy and it is the heart of a metropolitan area (officially recognized by the Italian government as a metropolitan city) of about 1,000,000 inhabitants. The urban sprawl of Bologna, including nearby Modena, whose metropolises are adjoining, is continuously expanding.

The city, the first settlements of which date back to at least one millennium before Christ, has always been an important urban center, first under the Etruscans (Velzna/Felsina) and the Celts (Bona), then under the Romans (Bononia), then again in the Middle Ages, as a free municipality (for one century it was the fifth largest European city based on population). Home to the oldest university in the world, University of Bologna, founded in 1088, Bologna hosts thousands of students who enrich the social and cultural life of the city. Famous for its towers and lengthy porticoes, Bologna has a well-preserved historical centre (one of the largest in Italy) thanks to a careful restoration and conservation policy which began at the end of the 1970s, on the heels of serious damage done by the urban demolition at the end of the 19th century as well as that caused by wars.