OER26 brings together leading voices who will help shape this year’s theme, “Openness Reimagined: Continuity, Change and Shared Vision.” The keynote speakers featured on this page will offer perspectives that challenge assumptions, spark new conversations, and explore how openness continues to evolve across education, technology, and community practice.
Meet our OER26 Keynote Speakers
Speaker: Prof. Eileen Scanlon
Eileen Scanlon is Professor emerita at the Open University and an honorary Professor at Moray House School of Education, University of Edinburgh. Eileen is an educational technologist who has worked in teaching, research and development with a focus on science education and science communication. In recent years she has conducted research projects involving open science and citizen science inquiry, exploring the opportunities for democratising research.
She was appointed Regius Professor of Open Education at the Institute of Educational Technology at the Open University in 2013, was awarded an OBE for services to Education in 2016 and was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS).
Her recent books include: Educational visions: the lessons from 40 years of innovation (London: Ubiquity Press), edited with Rebecca Ferguson and Ann Jones, Citizen Inquiry: synthesising science and inquiry learning (London: Routledge), edited with Christothea Herodotou and Mike Sharples, and Open World Learning: Research, Innovation and the Challenges of High-Quality Education (London: Routledge), edited with Bart Rienties, Regine Hampel and Denise Whitelock.
Her full publication list and link to papers is available at oro.open.ac.uk
Speaker: Prof. Dr. Olaf Zawacki-Richter
Olaf Zawacki-Richter is Professor of Educational Technology at the University of Oldenburg, a position he has held since 2010 following a professorship in educational technology at the FernUniversität in Hagen. His research focuses on open, distance, and digital education, with particular emphasis on online learning, artificial intelligence in education, and evidence synthesis. He has authored more than 200 publications, including journal articles, book chapters, and edited volumes.
He has served as co-editor of several leading journals in the field, including the Online Learning Journal, International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, Open Learning, Distance Education, and Zeitschrift für Hochschulentwicklung. Since 2024, he is Editor-in-Chief of the diamond open access Journal of Open, Distance, and Digital Education (JODDE). In 2023, he co-edited the Handbook of Open, Distance, and Digital Education (Springer) with Insung Jung.
Beyond academia, he has worked as a consultant for organizations such as the United Nations, the German Bundestag, and the Swiss National Science Foundation, and has delivered keynote addresses at international conferences worldwide. At the University of Oldenburg, he is Director of the Center for Open Education Research (COER) and the Center for Lifelong Learning (C3L), and served as Dean of the Faculty of Education and Social Scienc from 2021 to 2025.