Let us make experts in our image. The European Commission’s contribution to the Bologna Process

The role of experts in EU policymaking has been examined in a sizeable number of studies (Gornitzka, Sverdrup, 2008; Saurugger, 2002). The political sociology approach to the EU field has proposed a meticulous critical survey of the population of experts, their skills, careers and trajectories (Robert, 2013, 2015; Michel, 2005). Education has only recently become a subject of scrutiny in EU policy-making analysis (Jakobi & al., 2013), since it wasn’t traditionally an area of Community intervention. The Bologna Process has encouraged new research on the Europeanization of higher education. Since the launch of the Lisbon strategy, the European Commission has played an increasingly active role in supporting and directly participating in this formally intergovernmental process (Bache, 2006). My contribution will shed light on a group of experts which has received support from the European Commission for more than a decade: the Bologna Experts (in the EU member states) called also Higher Education Reform Experts (in the EU neighbourhood). It will be based on empirical fieldwork carried out in Poland and, more recently, in Ukraine, with comparative insights in the French situation. These experts, who are mostly academics, involved in HE reforms and Europeanization at the national or local level, meet regularly and communicate transnationally. This case is useful to analyse the role of experts and knowledge in EU policy-making. First, these experts can be considered as brokers between domestic and European political fields. As such, they give us a window into the dynamics of Europeanization from below and an opportunity to analyse the differential uses of Europe. Secondly, this case invites to rethink the notions of power and influence in the European political field. It shows that by supporting specific groups of actors, the European Commission seeks to create its own clientele, a professional group that will not only seek to influence the EU arena but also promote European policies at the domestic level. This leads me to reflect on the role of expertise – and its use by the European Commission – as a case of coproduction of policies between the domestic and the European level.