Season's Greetings from ICDE
As we approach the end of the year, the ICDE Secretariat would like to extend their warmest wishes to all our institutional, individual and student members, and our partners. It has been a year filled to the brim with exciting events, projects and activities - read on to discover our highlights from 2022.
This year, we were once again able to meet and connect with our members out in the world. The Secretariat met with members in Rwanda for e-Learning Africa, in France for the Open Education Global Conference, in Estonia for EDEN’s annual conference and in Norway for the Flexible Education Norway Conference.
International travel picked up especially for ICDE Secretary General, Torunn Gjelsvik, who represented ICDE at the UNESCO’s World Higher Education Conference in Barcelona, the United Nations’ Transforming Education Pre-Summit in Paris, the High Level Roundtable for Vice-Chancellors and Heads of ODL Institutions in Malaysia, and Globethics.net’s Building New Bridges Together 2022 in Geneva - to name a few.
In connection with the THE Digital Universities MENA conference in Abu Dhabi, Gjelsvik also paid a visit to ICDE Institutional member, Hamdan Bin Mohammed Smart University (HBMSU) in Dubai, where she was given a tour of their smart campus - almost completely run by AI - and discussed our collaboration on the re-launched ICDE Global Doctoral Consortium.
Launch of the Living Letters campaign at Globethics.net’s Building New Bridges Together 2022 Conference in Geneva
Torunn Gjelsvik at the High Level Roundtable for Vice Chancellors & Senior Officials of ODL Institutions in Malaysia
Torunn Gjelsvik visiting HBMSU’s smart campus in Dubai, UAE
Anna Fredriksen, Sophia Javaid and Juliane Granly at Flexible Education Norway’s annual conference in Oslo, Norway.
We also developed our first ever hybrid event: the ICDE Leadership Summit in South Korea in January.
35 people attended the face-to-face event in Seoul, while participants who were unable to attend in-person watched a live broadcast of the conference, or caught up with the session recordings at a later time. Read more about the hybrid summit here.
Virtual meetings and events still played an important role in connecting ICDE members to each other.
We were excited to once again host the ICDE Global Presidents’ Forum in November, which was attended by a great number of executive leaders from institutions around the world and sparked valuable discussions on lessons learned from the global pandemic, and how to prevent disruption in the face of future catastrophic events.
We also launched our latest networking event, giving our members the chance to meet our diverse community in our Members’ Forum sessions in June and December. These sessions connected ICDE members from around the world, and provided insightful updates on various OFDL projects and the work of member institutions. We are curious to see what the next forums in 2023 will bring!
We’re proud that the ICDE community continues to grow.
In 2022, 16 new institutional members were approved by the Board, and we were pleased to see many new individual and student members also join our global network. We look forward to working with you, hopefully for many years to come!
We expanded our global impact through the ICDE Global Advocacy Campaign (GAC). Our task forces continue to promote positive change within OFDL in their respective regions. In November, we officially launched the Latin American task force. At the launch event, participants gained further insight into how to advocate globally and locally for open, flexible and distance education, and how stakeholders can cooperate with each other across the region. Expect much more from the GAC task forces in 2023!
This year, planning for the ICDE World Conference 2023 started in full.
In September, ICDE and the Costa Rican Distance State University (UNED) officially launched the upcoming 29th ICDE World Conference 2023. The following month, in October, Secretary General, Torunn Gjelsvik, and Senior Adviser for Membership and Communications, Sophia Javaid, travelled to Costa Rica on a site visit, meeting with representatives from UNED and other key regional associations.
The close collaboration between ICDE and UNED will continue in the lead-up to the conference, which takes place 6-10 November 2023 in San José, Costa Rica. Remember, you can register your interest here.
The Secretariat gained three new staff members.
Sophia Javaid started in the role of Senior Adviser for Membership and Communication in April 2022. In September, Anna Fredriksen joined as the new Communication and Administration Adviser, and just a few days later, Laura Parra Cortés took on the role of Events and Projects Adviser in a temporary position. They received a warm welcome from the team, and are looking forward to continuing their work with ICDE in 2023.
Sophia Javaid
Anna Fredriksen
Laura Cortés Parra
The ENCORE+ project expanded its OER impact across Europe.
Over the course of 2022, the ENCORE+ network organised 9 events, gathering more than 700 experts and professionals, and creating space for valuable OER discussions in 70 countries. The network will continue their efforts in 2023, working to expand the ENCORE+ Network in Europe and exchange knowledge on innovation, policy, technology and quality in OER.
Kick off 2023 by joining us for the Lillehammer Lifelong Learning ICDE Conference.
We hope to see as many of you as possible in Lillehammer, Norway on 15 - 17 February 2023.
Torunn Gjelsvik, Sophia Javaid and Anna Fredriksen from the ICDE Secretariat travelled to Lillehammer for a site visit in December, and to meet with conference co-host, Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences (INN).
It’s shaping up to be a great conference, with an exciting programme and over 230 people already registered. Register your place here.
We hope to meet and collaborate with you even more in 2023. For now, we wish you all a peaceful holiday season and a happy new year!