ID: 33861
Open Educational Resources (OER) and OER-enabled Open Education Practices have transformative potential to improve educational quality, increase student retention, strengthen student engagement, expand access and widen participation, reduce costs for learners, foster cross-border and cross-sector collaboration, and enable the localization and contextualization of learning materials. Importantly, they also help advance international commitments, such as the Sustainable Development Goals—particularly SDG 4, which emphasises inclusive and equitable quality education and lifelong learning opportunities.Despite this promise and proven potential, the sustainability of open education remains uneven and fragile. Across contexts, efforts are often constrained by a lack of supportive institutional and governmental policies, limited capacity and resources, and infrastructural challenges. Open education initiatives frequently remain project-based rather than embedded within core institutional operations. Additionally, weak integration within networks and communities of practice, limited responsiveness to emerging developments, and over- or underutilization of Open Education champions and policy entrepreneurs and a lack of support mechanisms also contribute to stalled progress.This presentation argues that achieving sustainable open education systems requires a more intentional andinterconnected approach centred on five key elements: ideation, advocacy, policy, networks, and champions. Drawing on findings from the recently defended PhD thesis, “Prepare for the Long Run: Strategies for Affecting Governmental OER Policy Developments by International Organisations,” the session explores how these elements interact to create enabling environments for sustainable open education. The study examined how international organizations influence the development of governmental OER policy and how these efforts are perceived by policymakers, experts, and advisors across 33 countries, states, and provinces.The findings from the PhD research highlight that sustainable change does not emerge from isolated interventions but from sustained processes of ideation—where shared visions and narratives around openness are developed and refined—and advocacy, which translates these ideas into compelling cases for action tailored to specific policy contexts. Policy plays a critical role in embedding open education within formal systems and ensuring continuity beyond individual projects or funding cycles. However, policy alone is insufficient without strong networks that facilitate knowledge exchange, collaboration, and mutual learning across sectors and geographies. These networks amplify impact, support capacity building, and help align local practices with global developments.Equally important are champions and policy entrepreneurs—individuals and groups who actively promote, translate, and operationalize open education within their contexts and drive policy developments. These actors bridge gaps between ideas, policy, and practice, often serving as catalysts for institutional and systemic change.By integrating ideation, advocacy, policy, networks, and champions, this presentation proposes a framework for advancing sustainable open education ecosystems. It emphasizes the need to move beyond fragmented, short-term initiatives toward coordinated, long-term approaches that embed openness within the core of education systems.
Speakers 
Co-Executive Director, Open Education Global
Igor Lesko, PhD, is Co-Executive Director of Open Education Global (https://www.oeglobal.org/), an international nonprofit organizationpromoting and mainstreaming open education worldwide. Originally from Slovakia and based in South Africa since 2003, he has over 16 years of experience...
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Friday October 9, 2026 10:30am - 11:00am
EDT
6 DR4
MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA
