A Doctorate Well Earned and Deeply Deserved
The entire OEGlobal Staff and Board join in celebrating this extraordinary milestone: our Co-Executive Director, Igor Lesko, has been awarded a Doctor of Philosophy from Open Universiteit in Heerlen, the Netherlands.
For those of us who work alongside Igor, this achievement comes as no surprise — but it is no less remarkable for that. Igor has spent over 16 years at the intersection of open education and international policy, working with an evolving OEGlobal and helping to build this organization and this movement. Now he has added a rigorous, peer-reviewed contribution to its intellectual foundations.
The Research
Igor’s doctoral thesis is titled “Prepare for the Long Run: Strategies for Affecting Governmental OER Policy Developments by International Organisations”. He successfully defended it on November 27, 2025, at Open Universiteit in Heerlen, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Paquita Perez Salgado and Prof. Dr. Herman van den Bosch.
His research poses a question at the heart of OEGlobal’s mission: what actually works when international organizations seek to influence governments to adopt open education policies? Between 2002 and 2019, organizations including UNESCO, the Commonwealth of Learning, the European Commission, and the OECD played central roles in championing open educational resources globally. Surprisingly little was known about the strategies they used or how effective they had been.
Igor’s research changes that. Drawing on interviews with 15 representatives from 8 international organizations and 35 government policymakers, advisors, and experts from 33 countries, states, and provinces, his work maps the landscape of OER policy influence with unprecedented depth.
Key Findings
The research reveals that international organizations influence governments through three main channels: disseminating ideas about OER and open education, providing financial and technical support, and setting global standards. Crucially, however, the success of these efforts depends heavily on local advocates — ‘OER champions’ — who translate international frameworks into national action. Without these local leaders, even the most well-resourced international strategies have limited impact.
The thesis also offers concrete recommendations for how international organizations can better support governments in opening access to educational resources and opportunities. In other words, it is not just scholarship — it is a field guide. You can find Igor’s collated defence here.
A Personal Note
Igor completed this doctorate while serving full-time in a demanding co-leadership role — an act of dedication that reflects exactly the kind of ‘long run’ thinking his research advocates. He pursued his PhD as part of the Global OER Graduate Network (GO-GN), under the UNESCO Chair in OER at Open Universiteit — an institution whose own mission embodies the principles he has spent his career advancing.
Igor is originally from Slovakia and has called South Africa home since 2003. He holds a Master’s degree in Social Development from the University of the Western Cape (South Africa) and in Development Management from Ruhr University (Germany). He has worked in the open education field for more than 16 years, progressing from Membership Services Coordinator to Director of Operations, and now to his current role as Co-Executive Director at OEGlobal.
Please join the whole OEGlobal team in congratulating Dr. Igor Lesko. The open education movement is richer, more rigorous, and better equipped for the long run because of this work. Congratulations, Igor. This one is well earned!