We are continuing our series of conversations with recent winners of the OE Awards for Excellence. In this episode we take you to Lund Sweden to learn more about the far reaching achievements of Ebba Ossiannilsson who was recognized with an award in the Leadership category.

You will hear about an impressive array of key Open Education projects and efforts Ebba is involved in and/or leading, hence the well-deserved award presented to

an individual who has demonstrated significant leadership and longstanding involvement with Open Education. A person who has made significant and clear contributions to the furtherance of the Open Education movement, whose contributions to Open Education have spanned regions and/or had a global impact.

In this episode you will learn more about Ebba’s interests, motivations, and also a bit about the city of Lund she clearly enjoys living in, from a conversation we recorded just before the end of the 2022 year.

In the OEG Voices Studio with Ebba Ossiannilsson and Alan Leviune

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Episode 49 TranscriptDownload

References and Quotes for Episode 49

Actually I’m very, very concerned and involved with and try to connect everything what I’m doing. First of all, of course, to the SDG goals, but not just Number Four, but also the others because number four has an impact and influence on all the others. And I never talk about Open Education, OER or the open movement without, starting to talk about the SDGs and the issue of human rights and equity and social justice, because I think this overall, mission is very important.

Ebba Ossiannilsson

I think that’s, that’s very important and also I’m very concerned and committed to, the initiative by UNESCO about a new Social Contract for Education. Of course I think really we need to have another direction for the educational agenda, not at least to take the learner’s perspective. And really to see what is the role of education and how education needs to both organize but also perform both the content, format and methods related to because the global challenges need to be solved to global solutions as well. And that is an interdisciplinary work. So that is why we need to have a new social contract for education.

Ebba Ossiannilsson on the new Social Contract for Education

What I’m really, hoping for and working on is about the implementation and mainstreaming of the OER Recommendation. I think it is so crucial and still there just a lot about awareness raising and that is important as well. There really needs to be this implementation on the broad front and mainstreaming in all five areas. So that is work. I will like to continue it and, do what I can to advocate for [the implementation of the OER Recommendation].

Ebba Ossiannilsson on her focus for 2023

So then when I got the message that I was the winner of the award for open leadership, it was, fantastic. I was humbled, honored and so pleased, of course. It was fantastic. But I used to say when people are asking me about it I will say that all of us who are working in this field on openness are winners . Everything what we are doing may count and everything one person or one individual can’t do anything, but together we can do a lot….

But to be recognized by a global community really means, a lot.

Ebba Ossiannilsson on earning the OE Award for Excellence in Leadership

Our open licensed music for this episode was selected in honor of Ebba’s dedication to the UN Sustainable Goals is a track called Sustainable Survival by The Cow Goes Moo,, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License found, like most of our intro music, in the Free Music Archive (see our full FMA playlist).

The introduction created with the OEG Voices Mixer features voices of Judith S, Ajita D, Igor L, Una D, Robert S, Jonathan P, Gardner C, Cynthia O, Nicole N, Kevin H, Catherine C, Maren D, Clint L, Alex E, and Verena R (learn how to add your voice to the mix).

Also on a production note, this was the second episode we used Descript for transcribing and editing audio, it feels like a game changer for podcast production!