Universities today face not one disruption but several, arriving simultaneously. Artificial intelligence is transforming how knowledge is produced, evaluated, and economically valued. However, it arrives into a world already destabilized by geopolitical fragmentation, ecological emergencies, democratic erosion, and labor markets in structural flux. For many regions, including Central Asia, South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, these pressures coincide with what should have been a period of extraordinary opportunity: demographic dividends, rapid urbanization, expanding middle classes, and growing demand for higher education. The conditions that enabled three decades of university expansion are now shifting beneath institutions that have barely had time to consolidate.
At the International Association of University Presidents’ (IAUP) 60th anniversary conference in Seoul in October 2025, university leaders confronted a shared realization: the pressures facing higher education are no longer isolated disruptions, but converging transformations affecting the foundations of the institution itself.
