UNESCO’s third World Higher Education Conference (WHEC2022), to be held in Barcelona (Spain) from May 18-20, 2022, will mark the roadmap to make higher education more quality assured and diverse, innovative, inclusive, and updated in today’s development requirements.

This global event will bring together all relevant stakeholders to define and prepare guidelines for a new era of higher education systems and institutions to respond to the challenges faced by humanity and the planet, with special attention to the global disruption created by the COVID-19.

As the United Nations’ sole institute with the mission to contribute to the improvement of higher education, the UNESCO International Institute for Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean (IESALC) will have a relevant role in this Conference, leading discussions and presenting reports such as: “Resuming or Reforming? Tracking the global impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on higher education after two years of disruption”; “Supporting women participation in higher education in Eastern Africa: building sustainable and equitable higher education systems in Kenya, Uganda, and South Sudan,” a joint project by UNESCO IESALC and the UNESCO Regional Office for Eastern Africa; “Gender equality: How global universities are performing,” in collaboration with Times Higher Education; as well as a report on international aid.

Under the slogan “Reinventing Higher Education for a Sustainable Future,” the hybrid event -online and in-person- seeks to contribute to the improvement of higher education organizations and systems focused on Human Rights. Also, it attends to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) established in the 2030 Agenda and with the firm aspiration of “leaving no one behind.”

The ten main themes of the Conference are: the impact of COVID-19 on higher education, higher education and the SDGs, inclusion, program quality and relevance, academic mobility, governance, financing, data and knowledge production, international cooperation, and the futures of higher education.

Prior to the event, the UNESCO IESALC initiated a broad consultation process specific to Latin America and the Caribbean, which gathered the voices of different stakeholders related to higher education and made a cycle of webinars with experts on the key themes. At the #WHEC2022, IESALC will share the Consultation findings to anticipate and prepare higher education for its role in societies, creating innovative and visionary models.

UNESCO considers the process of collective construction as the most outstanding richness of this Conference, which aims to become a global conversation nurtured by diverse narratives on higher education and will give a new vision, a reinvention of what higher education will mean in the future. 

The #WHEC2022 program will include the following key themes:

• Generation of data, information & knowledge.
• Formulation of updated policy recommendations.
• Identification and dissemination of innovative practices.
• Networking and strengthening of partnerships.
• Broad participation of country stakeholders (highlighting diversity and inclusiveness of external/internal HED stakeholders, including youth).
• Adoption of commitments and a HED Roadmap framed in the 2030 Agenda and The Futures of Education.

IESALC’s participation

5/18 

10:15-11:45 Round Table: Impact of COVID in HE. Location: Auditorium Fira 

10:15-11:45 Round Table: International cooperation to enhance synergies. Location: Fira Room 6

10:15-11:45 Round Table: Fireside chats on higher education and (inter)national development. Location: Caixa 3

14:30-16:00 Round Table: Futures of higher education. Location: Auditorium Fira

16:15-17:30 Round Table: Exploring international aid for higher education: current trends and future talks. Location: Fira Room 8

16:15-17:30 Round Table: The Role of UCSIS in leveraging HEIs in the Small Island Developing States and its diaspora to achieve Sustainable Development. Location: Caixa 1

5/19 

9:30-11:00 Round Table: Transforming the futures of higher education. Videos from youth from each of the regional consultations. Location: Caixa 1

9:30-11:00 Round Table: What would it take to ensure access to higher education for all? Location: Fira Antara

11:15-12:45 Round Table: New approaches to the right to higher education. Location: Fira Room 6

14:30-16:00 Round Table: Financing HE. Location: Auditorium Caixa

14:30-16:00 Reimagining the Futures of Higher Education: Scenario development workshop (UNESCO Futures of Education). Location: Fira Room 4

16:15-17:30 Round Table: The next decade of higher education in Latin America and the Caribbean. Location: Fira Room 6

18:00-19:30 Launch event: Report “Supporting women participation in HE in Eastern Africa: building sustainable and equitable higher education systems in Kenya, South Sudan and Uganda”. Location: Caixa Room 1

5/20 

9:30-11:00 Round Table: Higher education as a human right: Perspectives from youth and the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education. Location: Fira Room 3

9:30-11:00 Round Table: Towards a shared future of higher education digital transformation. Location: Fira Room 4

11:15-12:45 Round Table: Applications of artificial intelligence in higher education, IESALC. Location: Fira Room 8

11:15-12:45 Round Table: Achieving gender equality in and through higher education. Location: Fira Room 3

You may register here 

Consult the provisional program here 

More information here: https://www.whec2022.org/EN/homepage