Towards a New Generation of Engaged Universities: The Need to Act, Adapt and Transform

Higher education just like any other industry has been subject to disruptive forces on a global scale and is facing unprecedented challenges and one of the biggest periods of uncertainty. There is not a single aspect of education today that hasn’t been utterly shaken by technological advancements, financial pressures, changes in society demands, educational reforms, and more recently by the pandemic which has exacerbated the pressures that higher-education institutions face.

There has been a raising number of fundamental questions about higher education, some of which include:

• • How do we cope with rapid technological changes and effectively embrace them?
  • How do we prepare students for jobs that do not exist yet and for challenges we cannot anticipate?
  • How do we ensure our research is impactful and meaningful in addressing some of the most pressing political, economic, socio-cultural challenges we face?
  • How can we compete in industries and with business models that haven’t even been invented yet?

Universities across the globe are striving to overcome these challenges, overcome these disruptive forces and find answers to many of the above questions to ensure they continue to bring relevance and to positively contributing in enriching their societies. Leaders of higher education need to adapt to a new era of “always being ready to transform”.

As the pace of change continues to accelerate, transformation has become an imperative and universities are in need to adopt radical transformation that enables to operate in a more flexible and resilient manner and to emerge stronger on the long run. Crisis very often require us to renew ourselves, albeit in a disruptive way.

The 6^th MENA -HELF will explore the meaningful prospects that higher education institutions can bring such as innovative learning and teaching practices that will prepare students for future jobs, the overall student experience and how it contributes to student success and to prepare a new generation of leaders, the importance of lifelong learning, the contribution of the sector towards the community and towards achieving sustainable development goals.