UNESCO World Higher Education Conference 2022

The decennial, UNESCO World Higher Education Conference (WHEC 2022) took place in Barcelona, Spain and online from 18 to 22 May 2022, to reshape higher education and ensure sustainable development for the planet and humanity.

The conference brough together more than 14,000 higher education stakeholders around 115 onsite roundtables, HED Talks and workshops, 48 “Speaker Corners” and 66 official side-events. It culminated in the adoption of the roadmap, “Beyond Limits: New Ways to Reinvent Higher Education”, setting forth key principles and transitions to guide higher education’s transformation in the decade ahead and beyond. The roadmap was conceived as a living document and an enriched version of it will be launched in fall 2024.

WHEC2022 was organized by UNESCO with the generous support of the Government of Spain, the regional Government of Catalonia, the City Hall and the Regional Authority of Barcelona and in partnership with GUNi/ACUP.

The 3^rd World Higher Education Conference (WHEC2022) took place in Barcelona, Spain and online from 18 to 22 May 2022, to reshape higher education and ensure sustainable development for the planet and humanity. It kicked off a movement to create more open, inclusive, equitable and collaborative higher learning systems geared to the challenges of our times.

Some 4,000 stakeholders participated in-person and 8,000 connections were ensured online. Participants had the chance to come around 10 key themes – the impact of COVID-10 on higher education; higher education and the SDGs; equity, inclusion and pluralism; the quality and relevance of programmes; academic mobility in higher education; governance in higher education; financing higher education; data and knowledge production; International cooperation; and the futures of higher Education. 

A high-level session was organized on the Global Convention on the Recognition of Qualifications concerning Higher Education.

WHEC2022 offered new knowledge, innovative ideas, creative alliances, and produced an enlarged and reinvigorated coalition of the global higher education community in favour of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and beyond. It culminated in the adoption of the roadmap, “Beyond Limits: New Ways to Reinvent Higher Education”, conceived as a living document and setting forth key principles and transitions to guide higher education’s transformation in the decade ahead and beyond.

• Concept note 
• Conference programme
• Details on the main events
• Details on the speakers’ corner

The roadmap, “Beyond Limits: New Ways to Reinvent Higher Education”, was launched as a living document at the World Higher Education Conference (WHEC 2022) to drive the transformation of higher education. The document is guided by two-time frames: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the 2050 horizon line of the Futures of Education initiative.

The roadmap’s starting point is that higher education is an integral part of the right to education and a public good. It looks at both the higher education systems (norms, policies, structures, stakeholders) and institutions (universities, specialized entities, networks).

It sets forth key principles to guide the transformation of higher education, encompassing inclusion and diversity; the protection of academic freedom; integrity and ethics and a commitment to sustainability and social responsibility. It outlines transitions to favour more transdisciplinary, flexible and lifelong approaches to learning and knowledge that respond to society’s needs, and to put technology at the service of effective, learning and research.

UNESCO organized an open call for contributions to enrich the roadmap between November 2022 and June 2023. More than 1,500 contributions were received and the final, enriched version of the roadmap will be launched in fall 2024.

together with

and