The global higher education landscape is being fundamentally reshaped by the latest technological and industrial revolutions. Frontier technologies, epitomized by generative AI, are not only accelerating the evolution of education toward “Future Classrooms” and “Future Schools” but have also elevated faculty development to the center of the global education governance agenda. Consequently, cultivating a future faculty workforce equipped with high-level digital and AI literacy, alongside global competence, has become a critical pillar for achieving UN Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4), bridging the global digital divide, and building robust national education systems.

Faculty roles are moving from traditional knowledge transmitters to connectors within global knowledge networks, designers of human-AI collaborative learning, and facilitators of cross-cultural exchange. This shift demands more than just the mastery of deep subject knowledge and technological tools; it requires faculty to uphold human-centric educational values in an algorithm-driven era. By fostering a new pedagogical dynamic characterized by the deep integration of “Faculty-Student-AI,” faculty can better support personalized student learning and the cultivation of higher-order thinking.

Simultaneously, addressing regional disparities and the unequal distribution of global educational resources remains an urgent priority for the international community. The solution lies in the co-creation and sharing of quality resources through the establishment of borderless faculty development communities, the mutual recognition of international standards, and the implementation of inclusive policy support systems.

This special issue seeks to converge diverse insights to explore the theoretical frameworks, practical pathways, and institutional innovations of future faculty development in the digital intelligence era from a global perspective. Our goal is to provide substantial support for building a global education ecosystem that is open, collaborative, and inclusive.

The main objective of this Special Issue is to bring together the new and innovative ideas, experiences and research results from researchers and practitioners on all aspects of Future Faculty Development.