This month, UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) shared its new open access policy. This new policy is a welcome initiative that will increase opportunities for the findings of publicly funded research to be accessed, shared and reused.

As part of our work supporting efforts in the creation, adoption and implementation of open access policies with various institutions, Creative Commons (CC) was pleased to lend its knowledge to assist UKRI in developing its open access policy as part of the Open Access Review last year. Generally, CC is committed to the goal of ensuring that the public is able to access immediately, free of charge, and without restriction, the peer-reviewed research articles and academic books resulting from publicly funded research. We are pleased to see that the comments we provided back in May 2020 have been taken into account in the review process. We are especially glad to see that key requirements of the new policy include immediate open access for research articles and the release of publications under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY) (CC BY ND by exception only*).

CC licenses and tools have become the standard in research publication open licensing. They are free, easy-to-use, simple and standardized licenses that enable researchers to share the articles or monographs they wrote with everyone, worldwide, on the conditions that they determine. In practice, this means research articles and data can be freely reused by others, thereby enhancing collaboration among researchers, accelerating the pace of scientific discovery, and facilitating the dissemination of reliable, practical information to the public.

For guidance on implementing an open access policy or using the CC License Suite, please contact us at info@creativecommons.org—we’re here to help.

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*At CC, we believe that the use of CC BY ND licenses should not be encouraged for open access publishing, because those licenses restrict standard reuses that researchers and the general public need to be able to do in order to maximize the benefit of research outputs, such as adaptations for a different readership or translation into other languages. By contrast, CC BY-licensed research can be translated into other languages, adapted for use as open educational resources in the classroom, or shared widely on other platforms that champion the spread of knowledge, such as Wikipedia.

Today marks my first year anniversary at CC. It is such an honour and a privilege to lead this organization whose relevance could not be more important at this time.

However, as I sit and write this reflection, I know for so many in our global community and network that our thoughts and prayers are with the women and girls in Afghanistan with whom I want to express my solidarity. I sincerely hope the international community will do all that it can to support women and girls in Afghanistan to exercise their basic human rights against a backdrop of chaos, violence and uncertainty. 

As for CC, I would like to take this moment of a year as CEO to reflect on all that we have achieved together during this extraordinary time. The global pandemic has meant that no one from this global, virtual organization has met in-person since February 2020. In fact, I’ve yet to meet a single Creative Commoner in-person since joining as CEO. However, we have not let this hamper our ambitions or restrict our achievements.

In the first four months of coming to CC, we led a virtual strategic process, which resulted in the creation of our new 5 year strategy. The theme of Better Sharing resonates now more than ever. This theme forms the central message of our 20th Anniversary Capital Campaign. It has been a privilege to support our 20th Anniversary Committee and to see the launch of the campaign in May this year. A huge thank you must go to the 20th anniversary co-chairs, Paul Brest and Ruth Okediji, whose wisdom and thoughtfulness shine through in their dedication to Creative Commons.

Our 20th Anniversary Capital Campaign was launched to a flying start, thanks to the generous support of Arcadia, a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin. Their $5 million multi-year gift to launch a program focused on Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums (GLAMs) is a phenomenal investment in supporting openness in cultural heritage. Brigitte Vézina, who is leading CC’s work on GLAM, presented the new program at Wikimania earlier this week.

This generous gift will help us achieve our ambitious goal of raising $15 million by the end of next year. Thank you to all those who support our work – without you, we could not free knowledge and culture around the world for everyone, everywhere. 

Our strategy is our guiding map over the next 5 years, and it is great to see our priorities of advocacy, legal innovation, and capacity building start to take shape. Last week, our legal team, composed of Sarah Pearson and Kat Walsh, published an open consultation on how we will be addressing the issue of aggressive license enforcement. This has long been a topic in the open licensing community, and we are now seeing real action coming together to address this critical area of concern.

Our work in Open Education led by Dr. Cable Green continues, and it was a real success story to see California adopt what we have been advocating for in open textbooks. We hope that over the coming months, as the world looks to the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26), we will have something more to share with you on our open climate ambitions – watch this space. It has been exciting to watch our work with Grant for the Web mature in the second year of the collaboration. The program is thriving under the strong leadership of the Interledger Foundation.

Over the past year, we have also seen the successful transition of CC Search to Automattic, and our stewardship of the Open COVID pledge transferred to American University. It is a testament to CC to see projects which began here grow and prosper under the leadership of organizations that share our values. We have also seen staff too move onto new and exciting opportunities, and I want to thank each and every one of them for their tireless efforts at CC. It has been great to welcome Kat Drew, Kat Walsh, Marlena Reimer, Brylie Oxley and Ony Anukem to CC. Our global community remains a strength that no matter where you are in the world you will find people who share our values over the importance of sharing knowledge and culture. I am excited about our 20th Anniversary Summit, which is now just a month away. I invite you all to join the Creative Commons team, global network, and broader open community to discuss key issues and learn together, the week of September 20th.

And so for the next year, my key priorities remain the 20th Anniversary Campaign, to meet our goal of $15 million by the end of next year, implementing our strategy of Better Sharing, and continuing to raise the profile and awareness of Creative Commons across our world. I look forward to the year ahead and thank you again for your support, friendship and commitment to the powerful cause of sharing knowledge and culture.

At Creative Commons, openness, diversity, inclusion, and democratization are at the heart of everything we do. We strive to create an inclusive experience at each CC Global Summit, ensuring that each event is as accessible as possible and that underrepresented groups feel welcome in the CC community.

Over the years, Creative Commons has built a diverse and globally representative Summit audience by dedicating resources to increasing diversity and accessibility. This year being virtual is no different – we are pleased to offer the Summit Access Fund to tackle accessibility issues in the virtual space. 

The Summit Access Fund will support community members and presenters who need financial support to access our tools and platforms, including reliable internet, in order to meaningfully participate in the event. Haven’t had a chance to register yet? Register here >>

We will be offering small dollar amounts of $50 and $100USD, and all applications will be reviewed by a volunteer committee from around the globe.

Whether you don’t have access to home internet, lack bandwidth due to living in a multiple occupant household, or live in an area with connection issues, we hope this funding will help make access to the summit more equitable. Priority will be given to delegates who are CC Global Network Members and those residing in the global south, but applications are welcome and encouraged from all participants.

Timeline:

• 10 – 24 August Applications Open
• 25 – 30 August Application Evaluation
• Early September Acceptance letters sent out
  

APPLY FOR THE SUMMIT ACCESS FUND HERE

If you can, please consider donating to the Summit Access Fund to help ensure reliable internet access for CC Summit participants who may need it, as well as translation and live language support. Donate here >>

For several years, Creative Commons has been monitoring an alarming increase in enforcement actions relating to CC licenses. Today, we are announcing the next phase of our evolving response to this complex issue, and we would like your input.

There are several elements to our plans, but the centerpiece today is a draft Statement of Principles Around License Enforcement. We recognize that these principles have limited legal “bite,” given that CC does not hold the copyright to community works. However, we believe there is value in articulating what CC believes is license enforcement that upholds the spirit and intent of the licenses. We also foresee other possible mechanisms for these principles to be useful, including integration of the principles into community codes of conduct and adoption by major rights holders. 

We want to hear from you. Do these principles reflect your own values? Why or why not? How can we adapt them to better meet community expectations? You can read the principles and our wider plans on this front on the CC site, and you can leave comments on the text of the principles in this google doc. We will be improving this draft in the coming weeks, and engaging in a public conversation around them at the CC Summit in September.

(Update from 21 Sep 2021: we’ve been reading and incorporating comments, and all links in this post now lead to the updated draft incorporating comments received so far. Please continue to offer your input!)

It’s the start of a new month, which means a new episode of CC’s podcast, Open Minds … from Creative Commons!

Our guest on this episode is Albert Wenger, managing partner at Union Square Ventures, a thesis-driven venture capital firm based in New York City. USV has invested in over 100 companies that use the power of the internet to re-shape markets, including Twitter, Etsy, Stripe, Tumblr, Meetup, and Kickstarter, among others. Earlier this year, USV announced a new $162 million Climate Fund focused on investing in “companies and projects that provide mitigation for or adaptation to the climate crisis.” In this episode, we delve into the topic of Climate Change, from what the average person can start doing today to the importance of openness and cross-sectoral collaboration and partnership to find effective solutions.

Albert is also the author of the book World After Capital, an evolving digital book project that explores a set of megatrend shifts as the global economy moves from the Industrial Age to the Knowledge Age. We discuss the open approach he adopted in writing and editing this book and get the latest updates on its progress. The book is free and available at worldaftercapital.org under a Creative Commons license.

• Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and more. You can also subscribe via the show’s RSS feed.
• Episode transcript: Text // PDF // Doc

Please subscribe to the show in whatever podcast app you use, so you don’t miss any of our conversations with people working to make the internet and our global culture more open and collaborative.

 

Here’s an opportunity you won’t want to miss! Grant for the Web–a global fund to boost open, fair, and inclusive standards and innovation in Web Monetization has announced a new public Call For Proposals open from Monday, July 26th, 2021, and running until Wednesday, September 15th, 2021, at 7 PM UTC. 

Grant for the Web will award projects up to six months in duration at three funding levels: Spark (up to $15K), Mid-Level (up to $50K), and Flagship (up to $100K). All funded projects will need to promote good web design principles, ensuring that the emerging Web Monetization ecosystem supports scalable, global, and open standardization.

From Grant for the Web’s announcement:

We recognize that dominant business models of the web are controlled by the same institutions, companies, and algorithms that reinforce systemic racism and inequality. We seek to support communities that have – and continue to be – systemically and deliberately excluded from opportunities around financial inclusion and empowerment. Starting in 2021, we began to mandate that all funded projects have a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) component, which can manifest itself in one of three  ways:

• The lead applicant is a person of color or the team represents a diverse group of people. 
• The output of the team benefits communities that have been historically underrepresented.
• Funds explicitly earmarked to address increasing participation of historically marginalized and underrepresented communities.

The 2021 open call for proposals requires applicants to select one of the four following categories:

Business Plans for Web Monetized Content
Exploring the relationship between specific content types and consumer appetites for monetization by offering value propositions that are different from traditional web business models. Read more.

Web Monetization API & Interledger Prototypes
Building technical infrastructure that will advance the capabilities of Web Monetization to launch new business models for the web. Read more.

Research on/with/for Web Monetization API & Interledger
Producing research, reports, and thought leadership to convince more people to adopt Web Monetization technology and practices. Read more.

Advocacy and Public Education
Helping others learn about and advocate for openly networked payments enabled by the Interledger Protocol and the Web Monetization API. Read more.

The deadline for applications is Wednesday, September 15th at 7 PM (UTC). Click here for your local time zone.

To apply and for all the information you’ll need to prepare your submission, visit Grant for the Web’s detailed Call for Proposals page.

We are grateful to introduce our Summit Program Committee! This year’s program wouldn’t be possible without this amazing group of volunteers, and we want to thank them for their dedication to creating a groundbreaking program so we can gather again to learn, share and create! Special thanks to our co-chairs Brigitte Vézina and John Okewole.

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Amber Osman 

With over eleven years of experience in research and scholarly publishing, Amber is a passionate expert in open science, an award-winning journal editor for advancing the publishing process by adopting innovative research and publishing solutions. She is also serving as a member of renowned scholarly publishing committees, Amber advocates for best practices in open access scholarly content. She currently works for the Law Offices of Osman & Co. in Pakistan. 

LinkedIn: https://pk.linkedin.com/in/amber-osman-63931816.

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Carlo Joseph Moskito

Carlo is a teacher and a free culture and open movement advocate from the Philippines. He has worked for several print publishing companies and an educational technology (edtech) company focusing on content development of K-to-12 instructional materials. Currently, he works as a consultant focusing on developing content for K-to-12 Science for a pilot edtech solutions project for last mile schools in the Philippines. He is the lone member from the Philippines of the Creative Commons Global Network, a volunteer to several Wikimedia projects such as the Encyclopedia of Philippine Heritage, and a member of the Wikimedia Foundation’s Elections Committee.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/cjmmoskito

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cjmmoskito/

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Delmar Larsen

Delmar Larsen is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry and the Biophysics Graduate Group in the University of California, Davis. Delmar received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago (Chemistry) and did postdoctoral stints at the Free University Amsterdam (Biophysics) and the University of Southern California (Chemistry). Delmar’s current research interests extend across many scientific disciplines including biophysics, physical chemistry, molecular biology, and computational modeling, with a common thread of investigating and characterizing of rapid condensed phase dynamics. Delmar is the Founder and Director of the LibreTexts project consisting of twelve independently operating and interconnected libraries that focus on augmenting post-secondary education in specific fields in both STEM fields, social sciences, and humanities. 

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Isaac Oloruntimilehin

Isaac Oloruntimilehin is an undergraduate at the University of Ilorin, studying Urban planning and currently in his final year. He is a member of the Wikimedia movement in Nigeria, and leads the Wikimedia Club at the University of Ilorin. Isaac is also a member of the Creative Commons Global Network, Europeana Network Association and actively contributes to open source projects. He is an alumnus of the Millennium Fellowship and Local Pathways fellowship at the United Nations Academic Impact and United Nations SDSN Youth respectively.He is an environmentalist and an advocate of the SDGs.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/isaactimilehin

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/isaacoloruntimilehin

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Jako Olivier

Jako Olivier is a professor in Multimodal Learning at the North-West University (NWU), South Africa and holds the UNESCO Chair on Multimodal Learning and Open Educational Resources. As an activist for openness in education he is an active member of the Creative Commons Chapter of South Africa and leads the Network of OER and Multimodal Self-Directed Learning in Southern Africa (NOMSA). He obtained his PhD in 2011 in which he researched the accommodation and promotion of multilingualism in schools through blended learning. He joined the NWU as lecturer in 2010 and was promoted to full professor in 2018. In 2018 he received the Emerging Researcher Medal from the Education Association of South Africa and he is a rated researcher with the South African National Research Foundation. His research is focused on open pedagogy, open educational resources, self-directed learning, multimodal learning, multiliteracies, individualized and contextualized blended learning, and online multilingualism.

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John Okewole (co-chair)

John Okewole is a Commonwealth Scholar; Creative Commons Global Network member; Google Certified Innovator (GoogleEI); Microsoft Innovative Education Expert (MIEExpert); MERLOT.org IT Editorial Board member; MOODLE Admin and a Scratcher. John has received scholarships & awards  such as the CC Community Activity Fund in 2018 and the Commonwealth Scholarship to complete a Masters in Online and Distance Education at the Open University, UK. He has completed degree and certificate programmes at Open Polytechnic of New Zealand; Federal University of Tech., Akure; Bocconi University, Milano; ICTP Trieste; University of Central Florida; University of Cape Town; the Internet Society; EdX, Coursera and more. He is the founder of Teachathon Edtech Network Ltd and Teachathon Foundation. He organized the free 24-hour TeachAThon global conference to empower educators during the COVID-19 global pandemic.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/dbeloved

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Jonathan Poritz 

Jonathan is an associate professor of mathematics and OER Coordinator at a four-year, public, regional comprehensive university in Colorado, USA. Before that, he was a professor or student at universities in six time zones. He also had a parallel career in information technology, working in a range of different companies. When in the computer world, he used and wrote FLOSS, which was then his gateway drug to the open education movement. He served on the state OER Council in Colorado. He facilitated the CC Cert course seven or eight times, and attended the last three Summits.

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Jorge Gemetto 

Jorge has been part of the Uruguayan chapter of Creative Commons since its creation in 2013. He was the representative of the CC Uruguay chapter in 2019-2020, and a member of the CC Global Network Executive Committee in the same period. He participated in the coordination of free culture events both locally and internationally. He also coordinated a Latin American digital culture project called Ártica, which was reviewed in the book “Made with Creative Commons”. He has written posts on local and international websites, as well as articles in national press media about open knowledge and copyright. He has participated in the coordination of public awareness campaigns on CC licenses, public domain, and copyright exceptions. In addition, he participated as an author in an international research on access to knowledge in higher education, coordinated by Joe Karaganis.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Jorgemet

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Marcelle Ngounou 

Marcelle is a project manager with a background in IT. As IT, Apps, and now how AI invades our environment. He is interested in data privacy management. He joined CC to share, learn from his peers about what is done in their respective countries and how we can help the African government to take advantage of the technology for sustainable development and equity. 

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Maxwell Beganim

Maxwell is an educator, tech enthusiast and Open Advocate. He studied Biological Science for his bachelors and Masters in Education with focus on Educational Technology and Higher Education. He currently serves as a Trainer for Open Foundation West Africa, Lead Trainer for SNV GrEEn Project in Ghana,Virtual Tutor at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. He is also the Network and Partnership Director for Green Stewardship International.Maxwell is a member of a team that led the Youth in Climate Action in Ghana. Maxwell was crowned the ultimate winner of Founders Day Writing Contest as the most diverse writer and contributor to the Open Movement. 

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Maya Dodd 

Dr. Maya Dodd completed her Ph.D. from Stanford University and did subsequent post-doctoral fellowships at the Centre for the Study of Law and Governance at JNU, and with the Committee for South Asian Studies at Princeton University. Since 2007, she has been at FLAME University and currently serves as the Assistant Dean for Teaching, Learning and Engagement as well as as the Chair of the Department of Humanities and Languages. She also serves on the steering committee of DHARTI, a digital humanities collective forged in India in 2018. Maya’s recent work is featured in Exploring Digital Humanities in India: Pedagogies, Practices, and Institutional Possibilities (Routledge, 2020) and her collaborative pedagogy can be accessed at https://southasianculture.wordpress.com/dh/

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Paul Blackman 

Paul Blackman is the Director of the Barbados Language Centre, Barbados Community College and Elearning Coordinator and Moodle Administrator for the College. He is passionate about Open Education and the use of OER and FOSS in education. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Open Leadership 2015 (first cohort) and is presently working on policies for the incorporation of OER in teaching and learning at the Barbados Community College. One of his projects for the near future is the creation of OER Caribbean to promote the use of OER and Creative Commons across the region.

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Ruby Damenshie-Brown

Ruby holds a bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Archaeology and a Masters degree in Populations Studies from University of Ghana. She also has a certificate in project management. She earned over 6 years experience in research, monitoring and evaluation as well as data collection. Projects she has participated include, but not limited to, USAID Partnership for Education , JSI Community Health Nurse project, Discovery Girls project with SI where i served as Zonal coordinator, Qualitative team Leader and Data analyst respectively. She is currently with Open Foundation West Africa (OFWA) as the Administrative Executive as well as the lead for Training and Evaluation department coordinating and ensuring the needs of the community are met.

===

Shani Evenstein Sigalov 

Shani Evenstein Sigalov is an educator, lecturer, researcher (working at Tel Aviv University) and Free & Open Knowledge advocate. Her work focuses on the intersection between Education, Technology, Innovation and Openness. She has been a passionate advocate for Open Education, Culture & Data, Free Knowledge for all, and gender equality and equity for the past 20 years. She serves as the Editor-in-Chief at Project Ben-Yehuda, the largest, free, online library of Hebrew Writings (similar to Project Gutenberg), and is a member of the Board of Trustees at the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit that supports Wikipedia. Shani is currently a Research Fellow at the Azrieli Foundation PhD Program, where she researches the use of the Semantic Web as a learning platform, looking specifically at Wikidata as a case study.

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Susanna Ånäs

Susanna Ånäs is an OpenGLAM organizer and advocate, with a decade of working with open cultural heritage projects, and a history of working with the internet, art and media since the early 1990’s. Currently she is preparing the second Hack4OpenGLAM for the CC Summit and coordinates the activities of the AvoinGLAM working group in Finland, a joint effort by Wikimedia Finland, Creative Commons Finland, and Open Knowledge Finland. She works on Wikidocumentaries, an aggregation and participation project to connect microhistories with the world’s open cultural heritage materials.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/susannaanas

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Teresa Cardoso 

As a member of scientific/editorial committees, a teacher, author, and assistant professor, Teresa focuses on open education, mobile learning, and ICT in educational contexts. By working at Universidade Aberta, an “open university,” they have the opportunity to teach about open licensing to a wide audience including students, fellow professors, school librarians and administration officials.

Exciting news! Registration for the virtual 2021 CC Global Summit is now open! 

It’s a special year because Creative Commons is turning 20! The 2021 CC Global Summit is shaping up to be one of our biggest, boldest events yet, so join us 20-24 September for a week of discussion, collaboration, creativity and community building. Whether you are new to the community or a long-time contributor, the Summit has something for you! 

For our second virtual Summit, we are building on our language supports, including live captioning of our major program elements. Soon we’ll open our first-ever Summit Access Fund – small dollar grants to help our community members and presenters cover internet- and technology-related costs to attend the event.

In order to deliver an equitable event that reflects the diversity of our community, we will be introducing a pay-what-you-can model for registration. If you have the means to do so, please consider contributing towards your ticket, which will help support those who cannot. We want to be clear that everyone will receive the same full access to the event and all of its features, no matter which pay-what-you-can ticket you select. 

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER 

Summit Program 

Whether you are an activist, advocate, librarian, educator, lawyer, creator, or technologist, the 2021 Summit Program has got you covered. 

We are thrilled to announce our keynote speakers who are joining from all over the world, sharing their work in open data, science and health, software and law. 

The Hack4OpenGLAM returns this year with more ways to get involved! It’s an opportunity for the GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives and museums) community to learn, work, and create with one another to improve open access to cultural heritage. Thanks to our partners AvoinGLAM and the Wikimedia Foundation for their support. 

This year we are introducing a lineup of panel presentations which will feature thought leaders and community members for discussions on emerging trends and innovations in the open ecosystem. It will be a celebration of all we’ve accomplished in the last 20 years, and a look forward to what the future holds. 

Our volunteer Program Committee is hard at work curating the community-driven program, and the full 5-day program will be published at the beginning of August. Stay tuned! 

Follow along on Twitter for our latest updates.

Interested in sponsoring the 2021 CC Global Summit? We’re currently seeking sponsors!

We’re back with another episode of CC’s podcast, Open Minds … from Creative Commons!

In this episode, I speak with Audrey Tang, who is the Digital Minister of Taiwan, as well as an influential free software programmer and hacker. Tang is a vocal proponent of openness and is working to manifest a vision for how open data and radical transparency can result in positive, productive collaboration between government and civil society.

Last year, Taiwan was frequently credited with having one of the world’s best responses to COVID 19. There were a lot of reasons for their success, but it was due in large part to a digital strategy that emphasized information crowdsourcing and open data projects that kept people informed and up-to-date. WIRED published a great article about Tang last year that goes deep on all this: “How Taiwan’s Unlikely Digital Minister Hacked the Pandemic.”

Tang will be one of the keynote speakers at this year’s CC Global Summit (happening September 20-24, 2021), which is Creative Commons’ annual event that brings together leading activists, artists, technologists, educators, lawyers, librarians, and others for discussion, panels, workshops, and community building. Register now!

• Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and more. You can also subscribe via the show’s RSS feed.
• Episode transcript: Text // PDF // Doc

Please subscribe to the show in whatever podcast app you use, so you don’t miss any of our conversations with people working to make the internet and our global culture more open and collaborative.

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By Cable Green: Director of Open Education, Creative Commons, and Chandrika Bahadur: Director, SDG Academy 

Open access to knowledge has never been more important than it is today. The promise of connectivity and the democratization of knowledge has made it possible for anyone, anywhere, to learn. In an increasingly connected and complex world, society faces deep challenges across economic, environmental, and social spheres that require new ways of thinking. 

The free flow of information and knowledge is critical for three reasons. First, it allows citizens to educate themselves on issues of climate change, biodiversity, health, education, poverty, food production, water, energy, urban planning, and all of the critical challenges encapsulated in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Second, it prepares us for a new institutional regime of learning, where the education system opens itself to learners of all ages, from all countries and all professions, extending quality education far beyond its traditional reach. Third, it allows knowledge creation and revision processes to reflect the diversity and context of people from different parts of the world, and to foster a global dialogue. 

Today, we recognize two different initiatives that have come together towards these goals: Creative Commons and the SDG Academy. We celebrate two decades of Creative Commons (CC), an international nonprofit organization dedicated to building and sustaining a thriving commons of shared knowledge and culture that serves the public interest.  CC removes the legal and technical obstacles to sharing knowledge to help society overcome its most pressing challenges detailed in the United Nations SDGs. There are over 2 billion CC-licensed works online.

Through its open licenses and public domain tools, Creative Commons helps knowledge and culture to spread across the planet, giving individuals and institutions alike an easy, free way to create and distribute content for the betterment of society. Through its Open Education program, CC works to minimize barriers to effective education by advocating for the use of open licenses and open education policies to maximize the benefits of open education for all.

The SDG Academy is the flagship education initiative of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN). It aims to advance education for sustainable development by creating and curating high-quality educational content from world-leading experts and making it available to the students, researchers, practitioners, and citizens who are best poised to take action on the SDGs. To date, the SDG Academy has reached over 860,000 learners across 193 countries. 

For the SDG Academy, a partnership with Creative Commons ensures that the products created by its wide ranging network of experts from around the world are available for use on a non-commercial basis by universities, practitioners, students, and policymakers. The SDG Academy’s goal is reach, impact, and transformation. Opening up the use of its content under a CC license is a way to access a wider audience and clarify the terms under which this content can be reused, adapted, and distributed. The SDG Academy announced in October 2020 that, moving forward, all of its new content will be available under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license. 

For Creative Commons, a partnership with the SDG Academy is a natural extension of its work to introduce the sustainable development community to open educational resources (OER), and share OER about the SDGs with educators, learners and policy makers globally. First coined by UNESCO’s Forum on the Impact of Open Course-ware for Higher Education in 2002, OER has evolved into a broader “Open Education” movement which includes open education resources, practices, and policies. In 2019, UNESCO Member States unanimously adopted the UNESCO Recommendation on OER, and countries around the world are now starting the process of implementing these recommendations. All of this work is done in the service of achieving SDG 4: Quality Education.

While the SDG Academy has always encouraged the sharing, integration, and contextualization of its free content, becoming officially open under a CC license sends a clear message that learners and educators can feel confident using these educational resources in the ways that are most useful for them. 

As Creative Commons completes two decades of work, its mission is more relevant than ever. And with more than 35 massive open online courses hosted on edX, 1,500 educational videos in its SDG Academy Library, and a new series of podcasts, an open SDG Academy is in an even stronger position to expand the reach of its high-quality, open educational materials on sustainable development and distribute this essential knowledge as a global public good.