World Universities Foundation announces the International Day of Universities

For immediate release

Antalya, Türkiye, and San Diego, California, 7 November 2026. The World Universities Foundation (WUF) announced the International Day of Universities (IDU): one day each year, on 7 November, when universities everywhere celebrate what they give to humanity, thank the people who make them, and invite the world inside. The day belongs to every university, from the smallest college to the most famous, and the date is the same in every country.

International days exist for many causes, professions and ideas. None is given to universities themselves, the institutions that educate the leaders, professionals and researchers of every nation. More than 35,000 universities in more than 200 countries serve more than 260 million students, yet attention goes to a few famous names, and more than 80 percent of the world’s universities have no seat at the global table. On 7 November, each of them has the same day, the same voice and the same place in the celebration.

The idea came from Prof. Bassem Khafagy, Founder and Secretary General of WUF and the first founder of IDU. He first proposed the day on 7 November 2019, as a worldwide call to set aside one day each year to celebrate the roles and achievements of universities. Then came COVID-19, and the day had to wait. Seven years to the day after that first call, WUF announced it.

“I have spent most of my life inside universities, as a student, as a professor, as an adviser, and as a leader. I know what they give, and I know how rarely anyone stops to say so. Now universities have a day of their own. Thank you, professor: three words that every university should hear once a year.”

There is no single program. Each university chooses how to celebrate: it can open its campus to families and schools, give public lectures in plain words, show the work of its students, thank its professors and staff, welcome its alumni home, or serve its community.

WUF invites every university, organization and person to take part. University leaders can join the Initiative Founding Members, at most two from each country, who will found the day at FC27, the WUF Founders’ Council in Antalya, Türkiye, from 26 to 29 January 2027. Founding Members can join until 30 November 2026.

Everything about IDU, and how to take part, is at https://idu.news, where the logo, the films and the pictures of the day are free for every university to use. Questions are welcome at connect@idu.news.

More news about the day, and its first Initiative Founding Members, will follow in the coming weeks.

idu.newsconnect@idu.news

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