The development of policy actors involved in the Bologna reform in Ukraine

The Bologna Process is an international policy project for the convergence of higher education structures in the European Higher Education Area. Most of the literature on Bologna represents studies that focus on the implementation implications of the reforms. The focus on the reform process, particularly in relation to the development process of Bologna policy actors, has been under-represented in the literature. This article investigates the process of the development of the main policy actors involved in the Bologna reform in the case of Ukraine. The timeframe includes the pre-history of Bologna since Ukrainian independence in 1991 until after the introduction of the relevant policy changes in 2003, and through to the issue of 2014 Law on Higher Education. Empirical data were collected through interviews with higher education actors in Ukraine and policy document search. Both types of data were thematically analyzed. The analysis in this article is informed by the policy learning theory and demonstrates the interconnection between path-dependency and change in the development of policy actors in the Bologna reform in Ukraine. This article shows that the old clusters of higher education actors, and the pre-Bologna relationships amongst some of them have been reproduced during the Bologna reform. At the same time, such a reproduction of the old during the reform was only partial as the Bologna Process has also been altering the relationships among some actors to an extent.