This collection of papers is the first proceedings of the Eurasian Higher Education Leaders’ Forum held at Nazarbayev University, Astana, Kazakhstan in 2012. The collection presents local and global views on the past, present and future of the higher education sector’s development. It consists of six keynotes and eight papers including six case studies. The topics of the papers vary from the discussions of educational reforms in China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Romania, Russia and US to the global debates about challenges of tertiary education in the 21st century. The papers discuss local and global nuances of higher education development in the world. They raise a wide range of issues such as search for true meaning and purposes of universities nowadays; functionality of a present-day structures of higher education governance and administration; striking a balance between institutional self-governance and accountability; issues of building research universities; and challenges and opportunities of higher education internationalisation.