The 2009 World Conference on Higher Education offered the global higher education community a landmark opportunity to put into action our collective responsibility and ambition to make higher education in all regions a driver of development and international understanding in second decade of the twenty-first century.

More than 1,400 participants from nearly 150 countries and territories took part in the 2009 WCHE. They represented a multitude of key stakeholders in higher education - national policy-makers, institutional leaders, the professorate and researchers, the student community, and the economic and professional sectors as well as the civil society.

The Communiqué, the manifestation of collaboration between various actors with a vested interest in higher education, adopted at the end of the Conference, provides guidance for renewed action in the area of higher education reform.

"The New Dynamics of Higher Education" was the theme of the World Conference on Higher Education. It brought together key stakeholders to forge a new commitment to the development of higher education.

A global platform for innovative thinking, the 2009 World Conference took stock of the changes in higher education and research since the last World Conference in 1998, addreseds the dynamics shaping the strategic agenda for the development of higher education and identified concrete actions to meet national development objectives and individual aspirations.

A series of preparatory regional conferences addressed specific regional concerns, expectations and proposals to bring to the 2009 World Conference.