Partners from North Africa, Europe and South Africa Launch the Knowledge Equity and Open Scholarship Week 2026
Tue 19 – Thu 21 May 2026
Session times:
AM: 10:00 – 11:00 BST & CET / 11:00 – 12:00 SAST & CEST
PM: 12:45 – 14:00 BST & CET / 13:45 – 15:00 SAST & CEST
A diverse coalition of universities have announced the launch of the Knowledge Equity and Open Scholarship Week 2026 (KE & OS Week 2026), a fully online, global gathering dedicated to advancing inclusive, equitable, and collaborative approaches to knowledge creation, dissemination and access.
Co-created by Mohamed Lamine Debaghine University – Sétif 2, University of Pretoria, University of Leeds, University of Salford, Université de Sousse and Chair UNESCO Open Education for Innovative, Intelligent and Inclusive Learning, andUtrecht University, and delivered in close collaboration with partners across the worldwide knowledge community, the programme will take place in 2026 with a central theme: “How can we bridge the Opens?”
Inspired by the SPARC Europe Positioning Paper, The Case for Connecting the Opens (November 2025), this three-day event, taking place from Tuesday 19th May to Thursday 21st May 2026, will explore how Open Education, Open Science/Open Research, Open Access and Open Infrastructure can work more effectively together to strengthen the equitability of global knowledge ecosystems.
A Co-Created Global Event
The Knowledge Equity and Open Scholarship Week is designed to bring together a rich mix of voices from across the globe, including practitioners, scholars, educators, librarians, students, policymakers, technologists, and community leaders. Our intention is to create an open space to learn, share, and connect.
In 2026 the programme will:
- Bring together colleagues from across the global community of knowledge creation to exchange ideas and inspire new forms of collaboration.
- Showcase diverse perspectives and practices, ensuring representation from multiple disciplines, institutions, geographies, and communities.
- Celebrate openness and equity, championing practices that make knowledge more inclusive and accessible for all.
- Identify barriers and explore solutions to openness and equity, examining how open and equitable knowledge ecosystems can support sustainable global progress.
Experimental co‑creation as an approach to collaborative solution‑building
As part of its commitment to global collaboration, the Knowledge Equity & Open Scholarship Week 2026 will include an experimental online co‑creation initiative that invites open scholarship practitioners from around the world to work together in small, matched groups to explore the question “How can we bridge the Opens?”
Participants from open science/open research, open education, open pedagogy, open source, open infrastructure and open access will be paired or grouped across regions and time zones to share perspectives, exchange ideas and develop a joint output such as a blog post, video, online poster or presentation to be showcased during the Week.
The experiment aims to foster collaboration and surface fresh, diverse contributions to the global open scholarship conversation. While the process is intentionally exploratory and co‑created, we hope the experience will generate valuable learning and will model more equitable, participatory approaches to shaping the future of open knowledge.
Please complete this brief expression of interest form to find out more and to take part in this process. We’ve provided some participant guidance which is available online here.
Further Information
Further details, including the full programme and registration information, will be released in the coming weeks.
If you have any enquiries relating to this article or would like to contact us to propose a session, topic or issue, please contact Thom Freeth, Producer & Relationship Manager at the Knowledge Equity Network: t.freeth@leeds.ac.uk