The Asia-Pacific Quality Network (APQN) was founded in 2003 and is one of the actively developing international organizations created with the assistance of the International Network for Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher Education (INQAAHE) and the World Bank.

On March 22-24, 2018, the annual General Assembly of the Asia-Pacific Quality Network was held in Nagpur, India, including the APQN International Conference "Capacity Building for Next-Generation Quality Assurance in Higher Education", in which the Independent Agency for Accreditation and Rating took part.

The event brought together representatives from more than 35 countries in the Asian region, Russia, Europe (Great Britain, Croatia, Lithuania) under the auspices of improving the quality of education and its accessibility for a larger number of students.

In her welcoming address to the participants, APQN President Ms. Jianxin Zhang noted the importance of uniting all the participants of the APQN network, improving the conditions and quality of higher education through such conferences, which is extremely important for developing countries.

Participants were presented with a rich program of the event which included a plenary meeting related to higher education issues and the need for changes in the systems; panel sessions, discussions in the workshop mode.

During the conference, the following key topics were discussed:

- Capacity Building and Development of Quality Assurance Agencies;

- International, Regional and National Quality Assurance Systems (Best practices of accreditation agencies, Challenges in quality assurance systems in Asia and Europe);

- Management Capacity between Program Accreditation and Institutional Audit;

- Emerging Issues in Indian Higher Education and Accreditation;

- International Capacity Building (Transparency and social responsibility of higher education institutions in terms of quality assurance, Capacity building of peer reviewers, Independent assessment of qualifications as an element of the national system for external education quality assurance);

- Capacity Building of Information and Transnational Education (Informatization of higher education quality assurance in China, Quality assurance agencies and professional accreditors in Asian nations and their roles on qualification recognition and student mobility).

At the Award Ceremony, participants - the academic community, foreign quality assurance agencies, representatives of authorized bodies, once again emphasized the integral role of higher education as the main priority in each country. The goal of higher education is to attract competent people and effectively use their talent. Quality education will overcome the gap between cultures and create a better understanding among them.