Abstract: | Between 1989 and 1992, the Council of Europe responded to the perceived need to assist eastern and central European countries to develop a legal basis for their higher education systems that would lead to a workable and equitable balance between state control and university autonomy and academic freedom. Thus the Legislative Reform Project of the Council of Europe got underway in the spring of 1992. The results so far have been very positive. In 1996, the Council on Higher Education and Research of the Council of Europe recommended the continuation of the Project, now known as a Programme, for another four‐year period and its extension to the sectors of science and technology. |