The world beyond 2015 – Is higher education ready?

The world beyond 2015 – Is higher education ready? was a digital campaign run by the ACU between 2013 and 2015 to raise awareness, elicit expert views, gather evidence, and advocate for the role of higher education in delivering social and developmental impact beyond the UN's Millennium Development Goals (MDGs, 2000-2015).

The MDGs did not explicitly reference higher education – either as a development goal or as a potential agent to address development challenges. With the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set to replace the MDG framework in 2016, a unique opportunity emerged in 2013 for the ACU to help advance the role of higher education in development spaces.

Outputs

The international campaign launched in October 2013, and submissions closed in March 2015 – you can browse submissions here and read our final recommendations here. Our findings were assembled into a briefing paper which was presented to ministers at the Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers (CCEM) in June 2015. We produced a final report, 'Progress and potential', which was published ahead of the UN General Assembly in September 2015.