Higher Education Alliance


HDI has a strategic collaboration agreement with the Global Partnerships Forum (GPF) for advancing the Higher Educational Alliance to engage young people on global issues. Working together, HDI and GPF help create the next generation of global leaders by connecting institutions of higher education with the United Nations and the diplomatic community.


The HDI’s Higher Education Alliance helps create the next generation of global leaders by connecting institutions of higher education with the United Nations. HEA provides a comprehensive range of services, resources and opportunities for students to gain hands-on experience working with the United Nations and in global affairs.

HEA currently has 58 member schools and a reach of nearly 500,000 students. HEA member schools host senior ranking UN officials, Ambassadors, policymakers and leading experts in world affairs as guest lecturers, and visit UN Headquarters in New York for intensive orientation sessions, seminars and conferences to engage, experience and explore the UN, and the wide range of global issues on its agenda firsthand. Select students will also have the opportunity to serve as interns at international institutions and non-governmental organizations and participate in HEA’s Summer Boot Camp at the UN in New York and in Washington, DC.

Membership in the Alliance is open to all institutions of higher learning around the world. In the US, the HDI is particularly interested in collaborating with underserved and underrepresented academic communities, such as the Historically Black Colleges and Universities network (HBCU), the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU), Tribal and American Indian colleges and universities, and various community colleges. In conjunction with the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, Humpty Dumpty is enlisting Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) into the HEA program. As part of its continual efforts create opportunities for international exchange and engagement for its members, HEA has partnered with Paris-based global communications firm, Noir Sur Blanc, and Academic Impact, the UN’s network of almost 1,000 colleges and universities worldwide, to expand the Alliance into Europe and worldwide.