This work aims at highlighting the central role of higher education for sectors and fields in-volved in changing processes, like museum sector. First of all, we analyze the most relevant stages of change of higher education in Europe, due to the promotion of the Bologna process. With this analysis, we intend to consider the theoretical components of this reform process: they are largely overlapping with those of general public sector reform. In particular, the common features regard the promotion of the autonomy of the organizations implicated in them, the quest for quality services and the promotion of social inclusion.
Therefore, museums are claimed to be proactive in answering to these changes. In this sense, the Associations of Museums which have promoted Charters of Museum Professions, both at national and European level, play an important role. Museums need managerial figures able to interpret the new challenges. Indeed we think an integrated and interdisciplinary education process is necessary, with the support of concrete experiences inside museums and other cul-tural institutions and a cross-approach to the functions of research, defense, preservation, de-velopment and communication. Finally, on-the-job training and ongoing education should be-come usual practices, in order to adapt competences and capabilities of the museums human resources to the evolution of the society and the constant development of the innovation.