Network time for the European Higher Education Area

In this article, we discuss the process of standardization of Higher education (HE) initiated by the Bologna Process bringing to the forefront the temporal politics of the standardization of European Higher Education Arena (EHEA). Empirically, we perform a comparative review of the Scorecards indicators at the base of the Bologna Process monitoring project. We argue that the fabrication of EHEA could be seen as the installation of new time-space ‘time’ and ‘space’ appear inevitably intertwined. Instead of being a simple addition, the time space of EHEA interferes with the multiple time spaces of educational institutions and is characterized by being a network time, an unbroken and fragmented temporality sustained, enacted through, and controlled by the fluidity and the malleability of standards. They change recurrently over time, playing with different rhythms. What emerges is an overall arrhythmia that maintains the field permanently in tension. This reconfigures temporality as intrinsically manifold: as multiple and heterogeneous. Moreover, the temporal politics of standards reconfigures perception of past, present and especially future. The current state of implementation is constantly being (re)shaped in relation to the present and future performances, where’s one today level of EHEA targets achievement forms the basis for improvement tomorrow. In this scenario, assessing standards and headline targets become a policy instrument for synchronizing the countries performances, by locating them in a temporal framework that encodes future-oriented dispositions