Draft ICDE Strategic Plan 2025-2028

Calling all members – we need your views on the implementation of the draft ICDE Strategic Plan for the new period 2025-2028.

ICDE has a proud heritage built by members providing inclusive and quality education to all. Our community is a global movement of innovation, proving that effective education can be designed in ways that don’t just serve a privileged few. It is crucial that we continue to set the agenda for the future of education through borderless collaboration in our field.

In the strategy proposal, our delivery to members is provided through a global marketplace for the exchange of innovation and ideas. Its value is to provide members with ideas, insights and knowledge for the design and delivery of inclusive, scalable and sustainable education. This is true for ICDE since its inception, and we are confident it is the defining direction for our future.

The terms inclusive, scalable and sustainable ensure our ongoing relevance and reach as a global community, and will act as central components of our identity.

As a Board, we have noticed the steady mainstreaming of open and distance education thinking across higher education, by institutions who do not see themselves as open and distance providers. A plethora of practice terminology is now used, making positioning of a global movement such as ICDE exceptionally difficult. We see the value of including all actors with an interest in inclusive, scalable, and sustainable education to join our global conversation regardless of the terms they use to describe their practice.

While our direction is away from open and distance as exclusive markers of what we stand for, the significant heritage of these terms remains. Rather than promoting specific models or terminology, the terms inclusivity, scalability, sustainability, allow us to incorporate all voices whilst being more deliberate about our objectives for education. Our hope is that existing members of ICDE will see themselves and their institutions as part of this community dedicated to the ongoing pursuit of inclusive, scalable, and sustainable education alongside new members who may not have identified themselves as belonging to an open and distance education community.

Your input to the implementation of the next ICDE Strategy is invaluable to us. We therefore hope that you will engage in the open consultation process that all ICDE members now are invited to take part in.

On behalf of the ICDE Board,

Mark Nichols

ICDE President

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About the strategic plan

The ICDE Strategic Plan is summarised in the organisation strategy and aligned strategic objectives for the next four-year strategic period.

The overall purpose for ICDE as a member association is to shape inclusive,
scalable and sustainable education, together with our members and partners.

• In order to do this, we need to recruit and engage institutions with resources, engagement and interest in borderless collaboration (Level 1: Target members)
• The value proposition for members is summarised as: “ICDE helps us with transformation and growth” by giving members a valuable voice in our global community, providing them relevant insight and knowledge, and enabling them to learn, collaborate and innovate (Level 2: Value for members)
• ICDE’s delivery to members is to provide a global marketplace for the exchange of innovation and ideas that will help them with transformation and growth. The marketplace consists of activities that ICDE already undertakes (events, advocacy, collaborative projects, expert networks) and will be supplemented with new relevant content provided through impactful stories from our membership as well as new member products and services. (Level 3: ICDE’s delivery)
• The ICDE organization suggests that the ICDE Secretariat must, like our members, have a scalable and sustainable model for the delivery of the products and services that will populate the marketplace (Level 4: ICDE Organization)

The whole model is based on a culture of care, curiosity and challenge reflecting the spirit of inclusiveness, openness and transformative change that ICDE has pushed throughout its history as a global actor for equitable and inclusive access to education for all.

Strategic objectives 2025 – 2028

The following strategic objectives corresponds with the four levels
in the strategy model:

• Strategic Objective 1: Increased global impact from ICDE members shaping inclusive, scalable and sustainable education (Level 1)
• Strategic Objective 2: Increased ICDE brand recognition through the showcase of ICDE members’ contribution to inclusive, scalable and sustainable education (Level 2)
• Strategic Objective 3: Extended delivery of quality services and products through a global marketplace that enables and empowers members to innovate and grow (Level 3)
• Strategic Objective 4: Inclusive, sustained and scalable model of ICDE services and products for long-term growth (Level 4)

Member consultation period: 16 September – 7 October 2024

We now invite you to send us your views on this above explained strategy and strategic objectives for 2025-2028, via a survey and virtual member meetings.