The UNESCO 2026 roadmap calls explicitly for accreditation systems that are more relevant and impactful

Accreditation is economic infrastructure. 

It’s foundational to development as roads or power grids.

The World Bank’s 2025 World Development Report makes this striking claim. 

The UNESCO 2026 roadmap for transforming higher education points in the same direction.

Taken together, the case is clear. So, that leaves us with the question: 

Who holds the infrastructure accountable?

Accreditation bodies operate with significant delegated authority. They set the standards that determine which programmes are recognised, which credentials travel across borders, which qualifications open doors. Governments and regulatory agencies place enormous trust in how these decisions are made.

But the processes behind those decisions - the panel procedures, the document review, the report writing - were built for a different era. Expert-intensive, costly, and difficult to apply consistently at scale. The UNESCO 2026 roadmap counts over 22,000 accredited institutions worldwide and calls explicitly for systems that are more relevant and impactful. The gap between that ambition and the way things currently work is hard to ignore.

Consistency is the pressure point. Two panels, same standards, same cycle, yet the reports they produce differ in rigour, language, and defensibility. Not because people aren’t trying, but because the shared infrastructure to anchor the work simply isn’t there. 

The regulators and oversight bodies that appoint and govern accreditation agencies are increasingly asking these questions. They should be. And the accreditation bodies best positioned for the next decade will be the ones that answer them before they’re asked.

The technology to support this already exists. The real conversation is how to apply it with the same care and judgement that make accreditation meaningful. It’s a conversation we’re having every day with agencies across Europe and the Asia‑Pacific. 

Where do you see accreditation going?

Sources: World Bank, World Development Report 2025: Standards for Development (December 2025). https://lnkd.in/g9ZAquaG

UNESCO, Transforming Higher Education: Global Collaboration on Visioning and Action (March 2026). https://lnkd.in/gVsP89Py