The International Forum for Education for 2020 was completed as a wholly East-West Center enterprise in September 2012.  Seeking to build on these efforts and combine them with a somewhat parallel process that was pursued in a joint East-West Center/University of Hawaii conference on higher education quality presented to an APEC constituency in August 2011, a new membership organization was formed as of January 1, 2013 called the Asia Pacific Higher Education Research Partnership (APHERP).  Materials displayed previously on this website are linked to those on the APHERP website, as well as events undertaken subsequent to January 2013. 

The International Forum for Education 2020 was initiated by the East-West Center to address the need for new paradigms in higher education that will respond to transforming economic, social and cultural changes. These changes result from increased globalization, heightened interdependency and uneven development among nations. The core of any society’s capacity to deal with such dramatic change lies in its educational system. Rapidly accelerating and uneven change calls for educational responses that go beyond simply reforming existing institutions. Because of the fast pace of change, higher educational institutions face a deepening crisis that yields no single solution. Educational systems must be attuned to the specific ways in which globalization impacts local conditions, and they must be capable of and commited to creative innovation. Today's realities compel a pardigmatic shift in higher educational aims and practices that will help to drive social, economic, political and cultural change. 

The program provides a setting for current and potential leaders in the Asia-Pacific region to work collaboratively in developing new strategies for innovation in education. It primarily does this through four sets of activities:

1. The Education Leadership Institute
2. Senior Seminars for individuals from education, politics, business, media and cultural production concerned with creatively addressing the future educational needs of the region
   • Publications of books and journal issues on subjects addressed in senior seminars
   • A network of participant individuals and organizations