The Vatican has announced that it will host a seminar to explore the Bologna Process and its relationship to Catholic higher education this week. The Seminar is being organized by the Holy See’s Congregation for Higher Education along with the European Union’s UNESCO-CEPES organization.

The Bologna Process, named for its origins at the University of Bologna, began in 1998 when government education leaders from Germany, France, Italy and Great Britain gathered to create what they called “a European space for higher education.”

The process of harmonizing European education began on the 700th anniversary of the founding of Paris’s University of the Sorbonne.

In 1999, leaders from 29 European nations signed a political declaration of shared higher educational goals in the Italian city of Bologna.

On Thursday, the Vatican will host a press conference which is slated to be attended by Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski, prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education, Archbishop Michael J. Miller C.S.B. and Msgr. Angelo Vincenzo Zani, respectively secretary and under-secretary of the same congregation. In addition, Jan Sadlak, director of UNESCO-CEPES will also be on hand.

The seminar itself will be held in the Vatican’s New Synod Hall from March 30th to April 1st.