This is the first of a series of normative documents intended to guide the future of curriculum at a global level. This first Document calls for a global paradigm shift for curriculum. In the new paradigm, curriculum is reconceptualized and repositioned to best meet current and future challenges and opportunities. This first Document also anchors the rest of the Documents in the series, which seek to guide the operationalization of the new paradigm. The new paradigm recognizes curriculum as a more dynamic, complex, and multi-dimensional concept than its current conceptualizations portray. It therefore calls for a reconceptualization of curriculum along the following key dimensions: (1) the first operational tool for ensuring the sustained development-relevance of education and learning systems; (2) a catalyst for innovation, disruption, and social transformation; (3) a force for social equity, justice, cohesion, stability, and peace; (4) an integrative core of education systems; (5) an enabler of lifelong learning; (6) a determinant of the quality of education and learning; (7) a determinant of key cost drivers of education and learning systems; and (8) a lifelong learning system in its own right.