In recent years, new geopolitical tensions, rising nationalism and even the COVID-19 pandemic have questioned and diminished multilateralism and led to a more closed world. However, at the same time, the COVID-19 pandemic and other challenges that the world faces, such as climate change, food security, energy resources, demonstrated that local solutions are unfit for purpose and that only a global approach can lead to the resolution of these challenges.

Therefore, cooperation is essential and needed more than ever, especially in higher education, to share existing and create new knowledge, conduct research that could respond to global and local challenges, and give the citizens of tomorrow with skills and competencies to face future challenges.

The webinar will discuss the importance of international collaboration in a panel discussion format with speakers from all the different regions of the world. A Q&A session with the participants will follow it. This webinar forms part of a series developed by the IAU since 2020 and reflects on The Future of Higher education.

A Q&A session with the participants will follow.

Speakers:

• Hassan Rashid Al-Derham, President, Qatar University

• Jacques Frémont, President, University of Ottawa

• Ignacio Sánchez Díaz, President, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

• Sebastian Berger, Executive Director, Global Student Forum

• Camille Salinesi, Vice-president International Relations, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, France

Q&A session moderated by Hilligje van’t Land, IAU Secretary General