The Open Education Conference for 2026 will officially take place at The Open University in Milton Keynes on 22-23 June 2026, bringing together the global open education community for two days of dialogue, reflection, and renewed vision.
Openness Reimagined: Continuity, Change and Shared Vision
Under the theme Openness Reimagined: Continuity, Change and Shared Vision, the conference will explore how the ethos and values of open education can be sustained and reinterpreted in a rapidly shifting educational landscape. The event highlights the enduring commitments that have shaped open education access, equity, collaboration, and the sharing of knowledge as a public good, while inviting delegates to reimagine how these commitments are enacted today.
The Open University as host
Hosted by the Institute of Educational Technology at The Open University (UK), OER26 returns to one of the foundational institutions of the open education movement. Since its establishment in 1969, The Open University has long embodied the principle that education should be open to people, places, methods, and ideas. Its legacy of widening participation and removing barriers to higher education provides a fitting backdrop for a conference focused on both continuity and change.
Its history reminds us that openness represents and constitutes an ongoing, transformative ethical and social commitment. Bringing OER26 to this setting underscores both continuity and change: continuity in the enduring values of openness, and change in the technological, political, and institutional environments in which those values are enacted.
Themes shaping the 2026 programme
Open education has always been both a practice and a proposition. It is grounded in commitments to access, equity, collaboration, and the sharing of knowledge as a public good. Over decades, these commitments have taken institutional form through open educational resources, open practices, open pedagogy, open research, open access publishing, and global networks of collaboration. Openness has shaped learning systems, expanded participation, and redefined what education can be.
OER26 invites delegates to reimagine and re-theorise openness while recognising the enduring ethos that has sustained the movement from its earliest days. The conference will foster dialogue across disciplines and regions, welcoming diverse interpretations of what openness means and what it might become. Our forthcoming call for participation will welcome contributions that explore how the ethos of openness is sustained, challenged, institutionalised, or transformed in the current moment.
Planning is already underway for a vibrant and engaging event in Milton Keynes, marking a key moment in the open education calendar, with the call for proposals opening soon.