This edited book belongs to the Lifelong Learning Book Series, which aims to engage international readership to renew the current perspective in lifelong learning and provide meaningful implications for practice worldwide. As an important component of the book series, this volume focuses on migration and the ageing population within the context of higher education. The emergence of these two groups has brought about new challenges for lifelong learning in higher education over the past few decades, such as meeting the diverse needs of those new lifelong learners and creating a more inclusive learning environment for them. Overall, this volume showcases how different countries address those challenges, analysing the continuity in their directions of change and providing some useful implications.

This volume contains 21 chapters, structured into four sections. Part I (Chapter 1), drawing on the notions of social justice and equity, establishes the interconnections between two distinct yet intersecting global phenomena: patterns of migration and ageing population, and how the two groups are changing the landscape of higher education. The conceptual framework for the book is then presented, consisting of key stakeholders, social factors and higher education. At the end of this chapter, the structure of the book is outlined and an overview is offered.

Parts II and III include studies on practice and policy in higher education and lifelong learning influenced by migration and ageing populations at institutional, national and international levels. Part II (Chapters 2–11) explores the challenges for higher education posed by migration from four dimensions: social responsibility, and educational, analytical and national perspectives across countries such as Australia (Chapter 2), Germany (Chapter 3), Puerto Rico (Chapter 4), Ireland (Chapter 5), Sweden (Chapter 6) and Mexico (Chapter 7). Chapters 8–11 are concerned with specific educational matters in higher education, including cultural diversity (Chapter 8), access to support (Chapter 9), intercultural education (Chapter 10) and pedagogic approaches in professional development (Chapter 11). These studies provide an informative insight into the impact of migration patterns on inclusion in higher education in a globalised context.

Part III (Chapters 12–18) examines the reactions from higher education institutions in response to migration and ageing populations. Some issues are also illustrated, including the necessity of proactive policy interventions to reduce the educational inequalities (Chapter 11); the slow reactions from institutions in catering for the educational needs of ageing populations in Japan (Chapter 13) and New Zealand (Chapter 14); problems with learning while working in the United States of America (Chapter 15) and working beyond traditional ages of retirement in Ireland (Chapter 16). The two subsequent chapters extend our views on lifelong learning opportunities provided by other innovative initiatives outside higher education, such as U3A in Canada (Chapter 17) and big data for lifelong and lifewide learning in the United Kingdom (Chapter 18).

Part VI (Chapters 19–21), as the final section of the book, provides a comprehensive reflection on all the matters presented in previous chapters (Chapter 19) and offers implications for higher education to meet the needs of both new and older lifelong learners (Chapter 20). Finally, Chapter 21 brings the chapters together and highlights that higher education is ‘a viral agent of change and an important enabler of greater equality and inclusion’ (p. 322).

As one of its strengths, this volume provides a comprehensive report on the issues of migration and ageing in relation to higher education across different geographic locations. However, most are western countries. It would have been worthwhile to present a global view by including countries such as China, Malaysia and South Korea, because those Asian countries are becoming new hubs for immigration, and are also facing the problem of ageing populations (Hof Reference Hof2020). Nevertheless, the COVID-19 pandemic has created social inequalities related to education, immigration status and employment status which have deeply affected access to and participation in lifelong learning (Waller et al. Reference Waller, Hodge, Holford, Milana and Webb2020). To build inclusive and diverse global lifelong learning communities, this volume highlights the strength and resilience of the field of higher education, as well as the importance of collective efforts at institutional, national and international levels. Therefore, this book will help/prompt scholars, practitioners, policy makers and professionals worldwide to reflect on the conception and practice of diverse and inclusive approaches to learning throughout the lifecourse and lead the further exploration of this topic.