Marco Antonio Rodrigues Dias spoke to GUNI on higher education trends and the challenges to be faced in the coming years. He believes that the principles approved by the WCHE in 1998 and the concept of education as a public good continue to be valid Marco Antonio Rodrigues Dias, the United Nations University representative at UNESCO, and Hans J. A. van Ginkel, rector of the same university, presented the paper entitled 'The Institutional and Political Challenges of Accreditation in the International Sphere' at the Third International Barcelona Conference on Higher Education, 'Accreditation for Quality Assurance: What Is at Stake?'.