EN
In the article the priorities of EU policy in the sphere of higher education in the context of the Program “Education and Training 2020” (ET 2020) are determined. The analysis of sources of research helped to prove that modernization agenda in higher education is the constant spotlight of the EU expert and academic communities. The dimensions of the modernization of European higher education (political, administrative, educational and technological) are determined and the levels of implementation of changes (supranational, national and institutional) are characterized. The analysis of the political priorities of the modernization of European higher education and generalizations of the experts on ways of implementing them allowed the author of the article to reach the following conclusion: the constant super-priority of the modernization of European higher education is the high quality, efficiency and compliance to urgent needs of society, economy, each individual. Increasingly pronounced is the problem of compliance of higher education with needs of the digital age, requiring a complex modernization of higher education, namely: 1) the development and continuous improvement of the system of digital competences of teachers, students, university administration; 2) formation at institutional, national and European level of infrastructure, which will enable a restructuring of the educational process through the application of innovative digital teaching and learning technologies; 3) formation of the open culture of change at different levels of functioning of educational system 4) the legislative support for the recognition of qualifications obtained through innovative digital educational technologies of (on-line, MOOCs, etc.); 5) sufficient investment programs of the modernization of European higher education; 6) the development and implementation of new approaches to quality assessment of higher education obtained through innovative digital educational technologies; 7) strengthening the relationship between education, research and business, the development of relationships within the “knowledge triangle”, which provides innovative development of society.