The sixth Ministerial summit was held in Leuven/Louvain-La-Neuve in Belgium on 28-29 April 2009.

HE Ministers agreed that while progress has been made in implementing the existing action lines, there remains much work to be done, particularly in the areas of lifelong learning and student mobility. As a result, no new Bologna Process actions lines were introduced at the summit.

The Leuven Communiqué calls upon participating countries to have national qualifications frameworks fully developed by 2012 and prepared for self-certification against the overarching Framework for Qualifications of the European Higher Education Area (FQ-EHEA). The Communiqué also places emphasis on learning outcomes as the basis for recognition of formal and informal learning. 

The Communiqué sets the challenging target that at least 20% of students graduating in the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) should have had a study or training period abroad by 2020. This presents a significant challenge not just in terms of encouraging students to go abroad, but also in terms of curriculum design, and data collection.

In preparating for the next Ministerial summit in Bucharest in 2012, HE Ministers asked the Bologna Follow-Up Group to concentrate on the following issues:

• measuring and monitoring mobility and the social dimension
• mobility flows between eastern and western Europe
• the future development of multidimensional transparency tools
• better promotion of the Bologna Process outside the EHEA
• recognition of qualifications

The Stocktaking exercise will continue to refine its methodology, and Eurostat, Eurostudent and Eurydice will continue to contribute through relevant data collection.

The summit concluded with a first meeting of the Bologna Policy Forum, where representatives from  non-European countries discussed the global impact of the Bologna Process with European HE Ministers.