Doha Hosts 2026 Arab Network for Quality Assurance in Higher Education Forum

Doha will host the 2026 edition of the Arab Network for Quality Assurance in Higher Education Forum, drawing academic administrators, accreditation officials and quality assurance specialists from universities and ministries of education across the Arab world to the Qatari capital.

The forum centers on the work of the Arab Network for Quality Assurance in Higher Education, a regional body made up of national quality assurance and accreditation agencies from Arab states that coordinates shared standards, peer benchmarking and accreditation practices across the region's higher education systems. Gatherings of this kind typically bring together university rectors, quality assurance directors and ministry officials to discuss accreditation frameworks, institutional evaluation methods and mechanisms for recognizing degrees and qualifications across borders.

Hosting the gathering extends Qatar's push to position itself as a regional center for higher education policy and reform. Doha is home to Education City, the campus run by Qatar Foundation that hosts branch campuses of Georgetown University, Northwestern University, Cornell University's medical school and Texas A&M, alongside Qatari institutions including Qatar University and Hamad Bin Khalifa University. Qatar's Ministry of Education and Higher Education also operates its own national academic accreditation system, giving Doha direct institutional experience relevant to the forum's agenda.

The event adds to a string of international academic and policy gatherings Qatar has hosted in recent years, part of a broader strategy under Qatar National Vision 2030 to diversify the economy away from hydrocarbons and build a knowledge-based sector anchored in education, research and human capital development.