At the EUROSTUDENT Talks on January 22nd, we welcomed Graeme Atherton, Director of WAHEN (the World Access to Higher Education Network), to introduce key findings from the Global Access Map 2, a dataset covering over 200 countries. The webinar looked at differences in higher education participation by gender worldwide, as well as inequalities in both participation and attainment linked to students’ social background. In addition, we discussed the major challenges in collecting data on higher education inequalities and what this meant for understanding the extent of global progress. Professor Atherton argued that while data collection, assessment and publication must be an ongoing project, the evidence already available shows the clear need for collective action at national and global levels to address pervasive inequalities in participation and attainment.