1. Introduction
Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to systems designed to perform cognitive tasks such as prediction, pattern recognition, and natural language processing through data-driven algorithms. In open education, AI is increasingly used to support content creation (Burrell 2024), learner support (Mashilo & Shekgola 2024), and platform personalisation (Álvarez-Icaza & Huerta 2024) across diverse educational settings. More recently, Generative AI (GenAI), a subset of AI capable of producing text, images, code, and other content, has gained prominence in education through applications such as automated feedback, co-creation of open educational resources (Government Social Research 2024), and AI-assisted translation (Hurot, Sfez & Van Effenterre 2024). These applications of AI shape how open education is delivered and accessed, enhancing access and engagement in multilingual, cross-border learning environments.
Open education finds in AI new ways to enhance open educational resources (OERs) and open practices in international contexts. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) defines OERs as learning, teaching and research materials, in any format, that are in the public domain, or protected by copyright but published under an open license that allows access, as well as their reuse, repurposing, adaptation and redistribution, at no cost, by third parties (UNESCO 2019). Open education encompasses academic practices that are open and lawful, utilising open technologies, pedagogical approaches, and OER to facilitate collaborative and flexible learning (Ramírez-Montoya et al. 2022). The 3rd UNESCO World OER Congress established the Dubai Declaration. This reaffirms the transformative potential of OER as a cornerstone for equitable and inclusive access to knowledge in the digital age, highlighting international cooperation to ensure that OER initiatives leverage, where appropriate, emerging technologies, including AI, to advance the UN 2030 Agenda through international cooperation and scalable OER initiatives (UNESCO 2024a). From this perspective, how can AI contribute to the present and future of open education?
The present and future call for integrating AI into open education, with context-sensitive design of learning environments, where ethical algorithms accompany autonomous and collaborative exploration, thereby expanding the right to learn without borders and cultivating collective intelligence that responds to the challenges of an interconnected world. UNESCO (2023) guides GenAI in the future of education and research, emphasising that learning outcomes will need to include the skills required to support higher-order thinking and problem-solving based on human-AI collaboration and the use of GenAI-generated results. Recent working groups of open science commissions recognise the need to consider the overlaps between the “open science recommendations” and the “recommendation on the ethics of AI”, further noting the potential value of leveraging AI technologies to address existing technology and capability gaps (UNESCO 2024c). In her publication on the future of education, Giannini (2023), Assistant Director-General for Education at UNESCO, notes that AI is prompting us to reexamine what we do in education, how we do it, and, fundamentally, why we do it. From this perspective, the promotion of open and collective educational practices that amplify the possibilities of open education is required.
While current developments of AI open new avenues for global educational partnerships, the role of AI in structuring international cooperation in open education remains unexplored. This study presents an AI-driven model for promoting international cooperation in open education, comprising three domains: enabling conditions, cooperative processes, and sustainability mechanisms. These domains collectively provide a scalable and transferable framework for international collaboration. While AI has been utilised to enhance open education platforms, create and distribute open educational resources, and facilitate student learning, it has not been applied to model or support international cooperation processes among institutions. This study introduces a structured, process-oriented model developed through an instrumental case study. Readers will find a practical framework to inform the design and coordination of transnational open education initiatives. The findings demonstrate how AI can facilitate institutional alignment, collaborative workflows, and informed decision-making for equitable and scalable cooperation.
Overall, the literature reviewed reveals a still nascent but promising intersection between generative AI, open education practices, and the challenges of international cooperation. The convergence of these fields raises the urgent need to rethink collaborative educational infrastructures not only as technical environments, but as socio-technical ecosystems that require new methodologies, common languages, and shared ethical frameworks. This study is situated precisely at this confluence, proposing an integrative vision in which AI acts not only as a technical tool, but also as an agent facilitating new forms of institutional interaction that are more inclusive, adaptive, and sustainable. Thus, a framework is established that not only synthesises what has been discussed but also orients towards future lines of action for international educational cooperation mediated by AI and anchored in the principles of openness.
1.1 International cooperation for innovation and equity in Open Education
In recent times, international cooperation between organisations and countries has been increasing, although it varies according to context, region, institution, and nation. Political, economic, socio-cultural, academic, and technological changes have transformed the concept of internationalisation to respond to current challenges and demands and to jointly achieve agreed development goals (de Wit & Altbach 2020). In education, the international perspective is closely linked to cooperation in research and innovation (European University Association 2021). From this perspective, international cooperation is understood as a process that promotes the mobility of students and faculty, fostering learning based on inquiry and experience, and establishing international agreements. International cooperation is also understood as a strategic alliance to respond to socio-educational demands to (a) collaborate, implement and match educational policies, research and curricula, (b) provide students with a global vision of their discipline and faculty/researchers with an inter/multidisciplinary perspective, (c) collaborate in the co-creation of knowledge, (d) reduce possible gaps and improve educational quality (Bruhn 2017; Caniglia et al. 2018; de Langen 2018; Nascimbeni et al. 2020). Thus, international cooperation fuels transformative change. Strengthening global ties is key to promoting creativity and equal opportunities in education.
In this context, international cooperation plays a crucial role in promoting innovation and equity in education, as it fosters access to and exchange of knowledge, creates high-quality educational materials, designs adequate resources, generates valuable experiences, and promotes the use of technologies among countries and educational institutions. An example of this would be open education and the promotion of OER under the principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL), which contribute to fostering pedagogical innovation, reducing educational gaps, and promoting access to education effectively and equitably, through social participation, co-creation of knowledge, and mutual understanding (Atenas et al. 2022; González-Pérez, Ramírez-Montoya & García-Peñalvo 2022). From this perspective, the concept of open in education is defined as a broad and abstract, political and social construct that ranges from innovative pedagogical approaches to didactic and methodological strategies (Cronin 2017). Thus, the open education policy is envisioned as intended “to foster the development and implementation of Open Educational Practices (OEP), including the creation and use of OER to increase access to educational opportunity, as well as promote educational quality, efficiency and innovation” (Atenas, Havemann & Nascimbeni 2020: 3). Building on this vision, adopting OEP becomes crucial to expand educational opportunities and catalyse innovation across contexts.
OEP represent a decisive step toward reimagining higher education through collaboration, inclusion, and innovation. OEP, as pointed out by Jhangiani et al. (2024), are the cornerstone of educational transformation in higher education, since through strategic collaboration and shared commitment they invite: a) the reduction of potential economic barriers, b) the promotion of equity and inclusion, c) the promotion of accessibility and data protection, d) fostering of participatory learning and student engagement, e) promotion of pedagogical flexibility and innovation, f) encouragement of student enrolment, persistence and performance, and g) the generation of alignment with institutional mission and strategy. Thus, OEP and OER are presented as opportunities for academic collaboration, not only in terms of teaching and learning, but also for the joint construction of collaborative and research networks (Ossiannilsson 2019; Martínez-Pérez & López-Caudana 2025) through international cooperation, to ensure equity in open education, facilitate access to educational resources, strengthen institutional alliances and networks, foster innovation and promote collaboration to seek joint solutions that promote inclusive and quality education.
1.2 Promoting international cooperation, Dubai Declaration
Strengthening international cooperation has become essential for collectively advancing education, science, and culture in an increasingly interconnected world. The promotion and facilitation of international cooperation is the sum of agreements, decisions, shared interests, and actions of all voices and stakeholders aimed at improving education, science, technology, and culture, as well as addressing global challenges and problems (UNESCO 2019). The need to establish an international framework for policy and practice in open science, and thus in open education, underscores the importance of implementing mechanisms and strategies to foster such cooperation. One example of an international policy framework is the UNESCO OER Recommendation (2019), which provides teaching, learning, and research materials that are openly licensed (respecting intellectual property rights and copyright) so that they can be reused, repurposed, adapted, and redistributed at no cost (UNESCO 2019). The purpose of establishing an international framework is to bridge digital, technological, and knowledge divides (UNESCO 2021) and to establish the principles of multilateralism, openness (open science and open educational resources), and sustainability (Pedró & Galán 2022) through the establishment of partnerships, networks, and synergies. To this end, open science and education are seen as an inclusive construct accessible to all, based on quality, transparency, integrity, equity, justice, social responsibility, diversity, and inclusion in collaborations and exchanges of knowledge in the processes of creation, evaluation, and communication between professionals, institutions, and countries.
Within the regulatory framework of the UNESCO OER Recommendation (2019), Action Area 5 focuses on promoting and enhancing international cooperation. To develop this, it will be necessary to: i) foster cross-border collaboration and partnerships, ii) establish mechanisms for funding, iii) create and maintain networks that share OER, iv) incorporate clauses with respect to international agreements concerning cooperation in education, v) develop an international framework on copyright and, vi) enhance intercultural communication, multicultural management and communities of practice (UNESCO 2024b). Under this umbrella of action, what is the status of implementation of the UNESCO OER Recommendation (2019)? In the first report on the measures taken to implement the 2019 Recommendation (UNESCO Executive Board 2023), it was noted that 78 reports had been received from a total of 194 Member States. In terms of promoting and strengthening international cooperation, it should be noted, firstly, that only 49 Member States (63% of respondents) reported the existence of signed agreements and/or other collaboration mechanisms, such as funding, with both national and international institutions and organisations in relation to the development and sharing of OER. Secondly, 22 Member States (28% of respondents) reported the development of specific clauses related to OER in relation to cooperation in the field of education. And finally, 49 Member States reported the existence of peer networks sharing OER. These data highlight the need for further work to achieve full international cooperation.
Addressing the challenges linked to inclusive and sustainable OER is vital for shaping the future of education. Thus, the evidence from the report highlights the need to address several challenges, both national and international, in relation to the creation, use, and adaptation of inclusive, equitable, sustainable, and high-quality OER (Sergiadis, Smith & Uddin 2024). The UNESCO OER Recommendation (2019), as UNESCO’s first standard-setting framework for education and technology, requires Member States to implement it and report every four years. Its launch highlighted the potential of emerging technologies, such as AI and decentralised, secure digital ledger systems, as opportunities for further progress in the 2019 Recommendation. The results of that first report led to the Dubai Declaration on OER (UNESCO 2024a), which invites reflection on the transformative potential of OER for equitable and inclusive access to knowledge in the digital age with the aim of, through international collaboration, bridging the digital divide, empowering communities, advancing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and ensuring that OER are a catalyst for lifelong learning. From this perspective of international cooperation, the DUBAI 2024 Declaration promotes a set of strategic components to operationalise cooperation in Open Education (UNESCO 2024a) (Figure 1).
Figure 1
Strategic components for operationalising international cooperation in Open Education (adapted from the Dubai Declaration – UNESCO 2024a).
The Dubai Declaration 2024 marks a milestone in promoting and facilitating international cooperation, serving as a comprehensive framework for strengthening collaboration among countries, sectors, and organisations. Its importance lies, beyond knowledge sharing and the use of emerging technologies, in creating mechanisms to address global challenges such as sustainable development, innovation, and economic stability. Therefore, in an increasingly interconnected world, this declaration reaffirms the community’s commitment to international cooperation as a cornerstone for progress and shared prosperity.
1.3 Artificial Intelligence in Open Education
Recent studies underscore the potential of AI in open education, highlighting its capacity to enhance access, personalisation, and inclusion within open education systems. For instance, Álvarez-Icaza and Huerta (2024) propose a digital transformation model using the DM4O design methodology to identify and address the limitations of open education digital platforms (OE-DPs), offering inclusive design guidelines that bridge the digital gap for diverse learners. In the context of student support services, Mashilo and Shekgola (2024) investigate how AI-powered chatbots can automate and enhance student support services in comprehensive open distance, e-learning institutions. For them, AI-powered chatbots are a promising solution for automating administrative and academic services in such institutions, aligning with the needs of the Fifth Industrial Revolution. Meanwhile, Qi (2024) evaluates the impact of an AI-enhanced “Internet + elderly education” model through empirical analysis, demonstrating its effectiveness in improving the theoretical knowledge, competencies, and emotional engagement of elderly learners in open education. Taken together, these studies demonstrate the relevance of AI platforms in promoting inclusivity, expanding access, and personalising support within open learning ecosystems, while also highlighting the importance of AI-driven approaches for structuring international cooperation and equity.
AI is also being harnessed to train a future-ready workforce through scalable open education initiatives. For example, Eremeev, Paniavin and Marenkov (2024) illustrate how AI-driven MOOCs in applied mathematics and decision-making effectively strengthen specialist training within higher education programs. Similarly, Karataş and Yüce (2024) investigate how AI tools, such as ChatGPT, impact preservice teachers’ professional identity and instructional approaches in distributed learning environments, finding that AI promotes instructional development while also raising ethical concerns regarding integrity and data use. Accordingly, they advocate for the integration of ethical AI literacy into teacher education programs to ensure responsible and informed use of these technologies. In a more specialised domain, Sevgi et al. (2023) explore the use of AI platforms in neurosurgical education, highlighting the potential of open AI tools to democratize access to complex disciplinary knowledge and expand professional training beyond traditional contexts. These findings underscore the role of AI in promoting inclusive and ethical lifelong learning within open educational frameworks.
The integration of generative AI into the creation and translation of OER is reshaping the way knowledge is created and shared in academic settings. For instance, Burrell (2024) provides an overview of generative AI technologies for the development of OER, emphasising the opportunities and risks associated with using AI-generated multimodal content (i.e., text, audio, and video) to improve global digital competence and reduce barriers to access. In parallel, Aggoune and Abada (2024) examine the technical, legal, financial, and human resource requirements for the effective integration of ChatGPT in the creation of AI-driven OERs, advocating for institutional readiness and sustainable adoption strategies. Deveciyan and Bataklar (2024) further explore how AI and open access software are altering the strategic thinking of educators, reshaping academic practices and influencing the competitiveness of higher education institutions. Initiatives aligned with the Dubai Declaration (2024a) regarding international cooperation, such as the Traduc-thon (Dube & Piché 2025; Lez & Duhaime 2025), are emerging to explore the translation of OER using generative AI. In this hackathon-inspired activity, participants collaborated in small teams to translate a disciplinary open textbook from English to French using tools like ChatGPT, DeepL, Google Translate, and Claude, critically assessing their strengths and limitations and contributing to the multilingual adaptation of OER. These studies indicate that AI is not only expanding the possibilities for OER development but also catalysing a rethinking of academic workflows and policies.
While multiple studies have examined the use of AI in open education, including applications in content personalisation and multilingual support, few have explored how AI can structure and sustain international cooperation across institutions. Moreover, the intersection between AI-enabled collaboration and global policy frameworks such as the UNESCO OER Recommendation (2019) and the Dubai Declaration (2024a) remains underdeveloped. This study addresses this gap by proposing and empirically grounding an AI-driven roadmap for global cooperation in open education, offering a transferable model that aligns with normative frameworks and is grounded in practical evidence.
2. Method: Instrumental Case Study of UNESCO 2025 Residency
2.1 Research design
This study adopts an instrumental case study design (Stake 2013), situated within the qualitative research tradition and enriched by elements of participatory inquiry and visual analytic methods. The sample presented is non-probabilistic and purposive: the UNESCO 2025 Residency. The case of the UNESCO/ICDE Open Education International Residency 2025 (UNESCO 2025 Residency) is not examined for its uniqueness per se, but rather as a means to explore the components and conditions that foster international cooperation in open education. The residency serves as a rich and bounded system through which collaboration practices, institutional diversity, and thematic alignments can be observed and abstracted into actionable insights.
Following Stake’s (2013) distinction, this is an instrumental case, selected to better understand a phenomenon (international cooperation) through a bounded, observable experience (the UNESCO 2025 Residency). The residency offered a “living laboratory” of collaboration, where 110 participants from 13 countries formed 10 interdisciplinary teams to design open education projects aligned with global policy frameworks such as the 2019 UNESCO Recommendation on OER and the Dubai Declaration 2024. The design of this study aims to uncover the structural, cognitive, and relational dimensions of international cooperation that emerged through these team-based interactions.
Methodologically, this instrumental case study is aligned with Maxwell’s (2005) vision of qualitative research as a generative and theory-building process. As Maxwell suggests, concept mapping and visual modelling are valuable tools to develop theoretical insight through the organisation of connections, tensions, and patterns. In this study, a combination of narrative analysis, document mapping, and network visualisations is used to trace how country-level participation, thematic focus areas, and collaborative structures converged during the residency.
The research design integrates the following core practices of qualitative case study inquiry: (a) Contextualization of the case within global educational policy frameworks; (b) Purposeful sampling of participant teams as embedded subcases representing thematic and geographic diversity; (c) Co-construction of meaning through analysis of post-residency narratives, project registries, and shared manifesto outputs; (d) Multimodal representation of findings, including concept maps and network graphs, to make visible the emergent structure of cooperation.
The instrumental case study thus enables the abstraction of a set of design principles and strategic elements that shape effective international collaboration in open education. The study culminates in the development of a roadmap model, which synthesises the findings and serves as a strategic guide for future training experiences and cooperative efforts in global education.
2.2 Case selection
The instrumental case study is presented in direct connection with the international dimension of open education, as articulated in the Dubai Declaration on the Future of Open Education and AI (UNESCO 2024a). The selection of the UNESCO 2025 Residency as a bounded and information-rich case is grounded in its capacity to reveal mechanisms of international cooperation through structured, policy-oriented educational interventions.
From a qualitative research perspective, Maxwell (2005) emphasises the importance of developing theory through visual tools such as concept maps, arguing that such representations allow researchers to “think on paper,” revealing hidden connections, contradictions, or conceptual gaps.
The components shown in Figure 1 serve as a framework for analysing how the residency embodied global principles and catalysed cross-sectoral and cross-regional cooperation. The UNESCO 2025 Residency is part of the broader set of activities of the UNESCO Chair on Open Educational Movement for Latin America, which, since 2015, has convened stakeholders from academia, government, civil society, and the private sector every two years. These two-week residencies are designed to foster international collaboration and co-develop open education and science initiatives. The 2025 edition, examined in this study, was organised with a particular focus on mobilising actions aligned with the Dubai Declaration, providing a timely and relevant context to analyse the interplay between global frameworks and local implementations.
From this perspective, the instrumental case of the UNESCO 2025 Residency is not only methodologically bounded but also strategically framed by global policy agendas, enabling the identification of transferable models and principles for strengthening international cooperation in open education.
2.3 Description of the intervention
The international dimension of the UNESCO 2025 Residency was strategically framed by the Dubai Declaration on the Future of OE and AI. The residency operationalised the five key components of international collaboration mentioned before in Figure 1, as outlined in the declaration, and served as a practical context to translate global policy recommendations into concrete, collective actions. These components are described below, with direct reference to their implementation during the residency.
Establish regional and international networks to support collaboration to empower community-driven OER AI development. 110 academics from 13 countries participated in the residency: Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Germany, Guatemala, Spain, the United Arab Emirates, the United States, Italy, Mexico, Peru, and the United Kingdom (Figure 2). The objective focused on collaboratively building new education and open science solutions, with people from the academic, government, business, and societal sectors, in order to project the future of education for all. With the support of AI, the aim was to generate a space for the exchange of ideas, experiences, and good practices that contribute to innovative research initiatives and a collective manifesto, within the framework of the UNESCO 2019 recommendations and the Dubai Declaration 2024, on complexity and sustainable development.
Establish mechanisms to support engagement with the broader open community and legal experts on open licensing. The participants’ profiles were professionally located in the educational, business, governmental, and social sectors, representing 52 organisations. Members of the open community, as well as legal experts in open licensing and intellectual property law, participated in the residency and guided open licensing and the integration of generative AI. Among the topics addressed were conceptualisations of open education and open science, OER, the characteristics of open licensing, possibilities for opening up knowledge, open infrastructures, and the need to develop new avenues for OE and open science.
Support cooperation, including at inter-regional and inter-sectoral levels amongst Research and Development Centres. The program was supported by research groups so that the ten work teams would have mobilizers with a researcher profile and experts in OE, to guide and train the members of the teams in topics of education and open science, emerging technologies, and new opportunities for the opening of knowledge. As a result, 10 research, innovation, and development projects were developed to attract funding, including a manifesto book for the future of education and open science, as well as OER shared collaboratively by international network teams. The technical report identifies ten projects aimed at attracting funds for research, devised by the work teams of the UNESCO 2025 Residency (Ramírez-Montoya 2025). The thematic axes of the residency were based on mobilising the UNESCO 2019 recommendations and the Dubai Declaration. The starting point was the identification of opportunities to collaboratively develop research projects that would attract funding and create a collective manifesto through a book.
Support collaborative frameworks that enable OER repositories and other open content sources to develop and implement policies. The program of the residency included training presentations on repositories, open content and open licensing, to train in open licensing, recognition of authorship, ethics in education, and open science. OERs are disseminated as open access through the Institutional Repository of Tecnologico de Monterrey (RITEC https://repositorio.tec.mx), and the training program was registered as an OER with each presentation, also in open access.
Throughout the residency, participants engaged in a co-creation laboratory model supported by AI. This included digital collaboration tools, multimodal communication platforms, and Artificial Intelligence Digital Advisors (AIDA), which provided 24/7 support (see Figure 3). The intervention emphasised active, evidence-based methodologies and participatory design processes, enabling the collective development of open practices, grounded in sustainability and policy frameworks.
Figure 2
Participants of the UNESCO 2025 Residency https://padlet.com/jhon4tt4n/participantes-estancia-unesco-2025-fly6h9qag6xjqbk5.
Figure 3
Open platform and AIDA interface – UNESCO 2025 Residency https://sites.google.com/view/estancia-unesco2025/inicio.
The integration of these five components into the residency’s design and execution contributed to advancing equity, digital inclusion, and collaborative capacity in an increasingly AI-mediated educational landscape. By aligning the intervention with the Dubai Declaration, the residency not only modelled innovative forms of international cooperation but also generated knowledge and practices aimed at reducing inequalities and supporting the SDGs. The case study presented here illustrates how global policy recommendations can be operationalised through participatory, interdisciplinary, and technologically supported interventions.
The residency was supported by an integrated infrastructure combining pedagogical methodologies with digital and AI-driven tools. Figure 4 summarises the ecosystem of resources that enabled the collaborative processes, knowledge exchange, and interdisciplinary co-creation central to the intervention.
Figure 4
Pedagogical and technological support resources in the UNESCO 2025 Residency. 2025 Residency Programme: https://hdl.handle.net/11285/703163.
2.4 Data collection and analysis
The data collection process was designed to capture the structural, experiential, and conceptual dimensions of international collaboration as enacted during the UNESCO 2025 Residency. Three primary sources of qualitative evidence were employed. First, the team registry and mobilisation log, maintained by the residency organisers, documented the composition and institutional affiliation of each of the ten interdisciplinary teams. This source provided insight into patterns of participation, country-level representation, and the thematic focus areas of each group, enabling structural mapping of collaborative configurations. Second, a post-residency questionnaire was administered to all participants, including both closed and open-ended items that explored individual reflections on learning, thematic engagement, perceived relevance of the projects, and expectations for future implementation. This instrument consisted of 22 items, comprising multiple-choice questions, Likert-scale ratings, and open-ended responses. Questions 1 to 6 collected basic data, including name, institution, country, and funding source. Questions 7 to 22 focused on the perceived impact of the residency, key learnings, project development, and alignment with open education and sustainability frameworks. The questionnaire aimed to assess individual learning outcomes, networking opportunities, and the strategic orientation of participants’ projects in relation to UNESCO recommendations and the SDGs. Third, the Manifesto Chapter Book, which was co-authored by each team, was treated as a rich documentary artefact reflecting the shared vision, theoretical foundations, and strategic actions proposed to address key challenges in open education and science.
The analytical approach followed a multi-layered qualitative strategy consistent with an instrumental case study logic. Data from the team registry were examined through descriptive analysis to trace institutional and geographic diversity, patterns of team participation and evidence of co-creation throughout the residency. This analysis helped illuminate the collaborative dynamics that shaped the residency’s outputs. In parallel, responses from the post-residency survey (n = 72) were subjected to inductive coding, allowing for the identification of recurring themes related to participants’ thematic interests (e.g., open education, formative practices, open science), perceived competency development (e.g., research, digital fluency, collaboration), and affective engagement. The coding also captured reflections on participants’ improved ability to conceptualise international initiatives and engage with global frameworks such as the UNESCO OER Recommendation (2019) and the Dubai Declaration. The manifesto was analysed using qualitative content analysis (L’Écuyer 1990) to uncover how each chapter framed challenges, proposed solutions, and articulated alignment with global frameworks such as the UNESCO OER Recommendation (2019) and the Dubai Declaration (UNESCO 2024a). Following L’Écuyer’s (1990) approach to qualitative content analysis, the data were analyzed through a systematic, iterative process involving three key steps using the software QDA Miner 5. First, a pre-analysis phase was conducted to organise and familiarise with the material, identifying units of meaning related to challenges, proposed solutions, and references to global frameworks. Then, during the coding phase, these units were categorised inductively and deductively, allowing for the emergence of recurrent themes and explicit alignments with the UNESCO OER Recommendation (2019) and the Dubai Declaration (2024a). The list of codes was shared with a second researcher to achieve greater reliability. Both coders independently applied the coding scheme, discussing discrepancies until a consensus was reached, in accordance with L’Écuyer’s guidelines for rigorous qualitative content analysis. Finally, in the interpretation phase, patterns were synthesised to draw conclusions about how the manifesto chapters collectively reflect and contribute to global open education goals.
To deepen the analytical interpretation and ensure alignment with the global policy context, the study adopted the five components of international collaboration, as defined by the Dubai Declaration, as a conceptual framework. These components, namely the establishment of regional and international networks, engagement with the broader open education and legal communities, cooperation across intersectoral and interregional research networks, development of collaborative frameworks for open content governance, and the integration of AI-driven platforms for co-creation, were used as sensitising concepts throughout the analysis. They informed both the coding scheme and the interpretive synthesis of the findings, allowing for the identification of how global principles were operationalised through the residency’s structure, content, and outputs.
By triangulating these sources and anchoring the analysis in internationally recognised policy frameworks, the study was able to surface key insights into the conditions and mechanisms that foster sustainable international cooperation. This integrative approach enabled not only the examination of collaborative dynamics at multiple levels (individual, team, and institutional) but also the derivation of strategic principles that inform the roadmap for future global interventions in open education and science.
2.5 Research ethics
Ethics is the cornerstone of all research. In qualitative research, due to its interpretative nature and focus on the interpretations and interactions between the researcher and participants, the collection of subjective narratives and the contextualised analysis of meanings, ethics cannot be approached solely as a formal requirement, but rather as an intrinsic component of the entire research process. Among the challenges encountered in this type of research are: a) the relationship between researcher and participants is closer and longer and can influence the data obtained; b) confidentiality and anonymity are essential when working with rich and contextual descriptions, a balance is required between the richness of the data and the protection of participants’ data; c) the interpretation of discourses and the representation of participants’ voices and perceptions imply a fundamental ethical responsibility; and d) ethical commitment implies a reflexive and critical positioning. For all these reasons, it is crucial to integrate solid and situated ethical principles that enable the generation of respectful, rigorous and socially responsible knowledge (Ciuk & Latusek 2018).
On this basis, the purpose of the UNESCO Residency was made known in the present study, providing the necessary information for participation. Informed consent and willingness to cooperate without coercion, manipulation, and persuasion were obtained. All participants expressed their involvement and collaboration in the study, following the principles of confidentiality and respect.
3. Results: Roadmap AI-Driven Model for International Cooperation in Open Education
The results provide empirical evidence of the dynamics that shape international cooperation in the context of open education, understood here as the structured, policy-aligned engagement of multiple countries and institutions toward shared educational goals. Unlike collaboration, which often refers to localised or project-level interactions, cooperation in this study is framed as a systemic process anchored in global frameworks and sustained through strategic coordination. The study explored how structured collaboration can advance global priorities through a multi-actor, interdisciplinary experience during the UNESCO 2025 Residency. A total of 110 participants from 13 countries engaged in this two-week initiative, forming ten interdisciplinary teams. Each team co-developed thematic projects aligned with the UNESCO OER Recommendation (2019) and the Dubai Declaration (2024a), based on shared rubrics and thematic mappings that explicitly linked project goals and outputs to the five strategic areas of action outlined in those frameworks, addressing topics such as digital inclusion, sustainability, AI, and open policy.
Analysis of team compositions and thematic focus revealed the emergence of ten collaborative clusters aligned with the five strategic action areas outlined by UNESCO. Figure 5 presents a heatmap that maps country-level participation across these areas: Capacity Building, Inclusive and Equitable Access, Supportive Policy, Sustainability Models, and International Cooperation. The data illustrate how each country contributed to the thematic teams, revealing patterns of distributed leadership and strategic alignment.
Figure 5
Country participation across the five UNESCO areas of action.
The heatmap allows a visual interpretation of national engagement, highlighting patterns that suggest leadership potential, regional influence, and thematic specialisation, while also revealing underrepresented areas that could benefit from targeted support. Countries such as Mexico, Peru, and Colombia demonstrated comprehensive participation across all five areas, reflecting institutional alignment and readiness to lead international efforts. Others, such as Spain, Chile, and the United Kingdom, played key connector roles between thematic clusters. These findings underscore the capacity of a well-structured residency to foster geographically distributed, yet policy-aligned, cooperation.
These participation patterns offer a macroscopic view of the cooperative ecosystem generated by the residency. However, to fully grasp the scope of intentionality and transformation, it is essential to examine the outcomes generated by the teams, as well as the perceptions of the participants. The following section explores two complementary data sources: the co-authored Manifesto Chapter Book and the post-residency survey.
The Manifesto Chapter Book provided a collaborative and strategic response to global educational challenges. It was shared publicly as an open access resource, serving both as a dissemination tool and a reference for future implementation in aligned educational initiatives. Each chapter presented theoretically grounded proposals, advancing areas such as digital equity, open science, and the responsible integration of AI. These outputs reflect a collective capacity to align local action with global frameworks, confirming the value of shared authorship in international cooperation.
Additionally, a post residency survey gathered reflections from 72 participants across 54 institutions in 13 countries. Key thematic interests included open education, formative practices, and open science. Participants also reported improvements in competencies related to research, digital fluency, and collaboration. Many cited an enhanced ability to conceptualise international projects and engage with global policy frameworks, including the UNESCO OER Recommendation (2019) and the Dubai Declaration (2024a). These findings both validate the residency model and provide empirical inputs for the AI driven roadmap, as summarised in Figures 6(a) and 6(b).
Figure 6
(a) Most relevant themes addressed during the UNESCO 2025 Residency; (b) Most strengthened competencies. Source: post-residency survey (n = 72) from 13 countries and 54 institutions.
Building on these results, the case study analysis identified three interdependent domains that structure international cooperation: Enabling Conditions, Cooperative Processes, and Sustainability Mechanisms. Anchored in the UNESCO OER Recommendation (2019) and the Dubai Declaration (2024a), these domains connect empirical evidence with global policy guidance and clarify how collaboration can be initiated, organised, and sustained. Enabling Conditions capture institutional readiness and policy alignment that underpin structured collaboration and the legitimacy of outcomes. Cooperative Processes describe how collaboration was enacted through interdisciplinary team formation, participatory design, and shared authorship, as documented in the co-authored manifesto. Sustainability Mechanisms refer to stakeholder engagement, institutional anchoring, and dissemination pathways, consistent with the survey evidence and the final residency proposals.
The three domains are interrelated rather than sequential. Together, they provide a conceptual framework that sustains the planning, implementation, and long-term viability of international cooperation in open education. AI is not presented as a peripheral tool but as an element that supports readiness, facilitates collaborative processes, and enhances dissemination and scaling. Figure 7 illustrates this framework as a roadmap for designing initiatives that align with global agendas, are supported by technology, and are sensitive to social contexts.
Figure 7
AI-driven model as a roadmap for international cooperation in Open Education.
i) The enabling conditions that supported the success of the UNESCO 2025 Residency were grounded in two strategic subdomains: policy alignment and institutional readiness. These elements provided the scaffolding for building trust and facilitating structured collaboration. Global frameworks, particularly the UNESCO OER Recommendation (2019) and the 2024 Dubai Declaration, did not merely act as political references but functioned as normative anchors that aligned institutional agendas and legitimised international cooperation. Policy coherence, in this context, proved foundational for initiating and sustaining collaborative initiatives.
Implementation guidance: In practical terms, the implementation of this roadmap should begin with policy alignment to ensure that institutional agendas are consistent with global frameworks before operational steps are taken. Once this foundation has been secured, institutional readiness needs to be strengthened by mobilising organisational diversity, mapping capacities, and preparing interdisciplinary teams. The involvement of over 50 organisations from 13 countries brought together a broad spectrum of disciplinary, cultural, and organisational perspectives. This heterogeneity facilitated cross-pollination of ideas and synergies among academic, social, and governmental actors. Diversity thus emerged not merely as a precondition but as a strategic resource for innovation.
Implementation guidance: Institutional readiness also included the deployment of digital infrastructure as a transversal enabler of cooperation. The use of open platforms, combined with an AI-driven coordination model, has mitigated linguistic, geographic, and temporal barriers, enabling both synchronous and asynchronous collaboration. For replication purposes, it is essential to ensure minimum connectivity standards, capacity building in digital tools, and an adaptable technological architecture tailored to local conditions. To guarantee that these systems work effectively, it is advisable to pilot digital tools early in the process before scaling up activities.
ii) Cooperative processes were developed through an open co-creation laboratory structured around an AI-driven organisational model. These processes constituted the operational core of the residency, enabling interdisciplinary collaboration, participatory design, and shared authorship. Rather than unfolding as isolated phases, they functioned as interconnected practices that collectively sustained innovation and ensured broad ownership of outcomes.
Implementation guidance: Interdisciplinary team formation should occur immediately after establishing the enabling conditions. Teams were not pre-structured but self-organised around shared interests, while facilitators ensured diversity in disciplinary and geographic representation. This bottom-up dynamic, supported by AI analytics, enabled the creation of synergistic and goal-oriented groups that maximised complementarities.
Implementation guidance: Participatory design follows team formation and serves as the engine of collaborative innovation. Sessions combined physical and digital tools, enabling all participants to contribute actively to the ideation and refinement process. The Artificial Intelligence Digital Advisor (AIDA) facilitated the synthesis of ideas, tracked decisions, and provided structured outputs. These practices ensured inclusivity, transparency, and iteration.
Implementation guidance: Shared authorship emerges as a natural extension of participatory design. Outputs were collectively validated and refined, fostering a sense of ownership among participants. For replication, it is advisable to reinforce shared authorship through iterative peer validation and the careful use of AI tools as mediators of collaboration.
iii) Sustainability mechanisms were embedded from the outset as an integral component of the initiative, rather than an afterthought. In alignment with the model, stakeholder engagement proved essential. The early and ongoing involvement of institutional leaders, community actors, and policy decision-makers enabled the development of projects with clear pathways for institutional adoption and long-term relevance. This participatory orientation ensured that the initiatives were both context-sensitive and structurally supported.
Implementation guidance: This subdomain should be activated from the early design phase of cooperative processes. Identifying strategic actors and involving them as co-owners of the process enhances sustainability and long-term institutionalisation.
A second key mechanism was institutional and contextual anchoring, ensuring that each initiative addressed the specific needs and conditions of its host environment. Rather than transplanting generic models, teams co-designed solutions grounded in local realities. This subdomain, highlighted in the figure, fostered authentic appropriation and increased the feasibility of long-term implementation.
Implementation guidance: This domain should be deployed once project designs are defined. It should include mechanisms for local validation, contextual adaptation, and iterative feedback based on community insights. Finally, the model emphasises AI-enabled dissemination as a core sustainability strategy. Beyond sharing results, AI was used to curate content, segment audiences, track engagement, and generate insights for adaptive improvement. AI functioned as a connector between knowledge creation and strategic circulation, enhancing the reach, visibility, and replicability of outcomes.
Implementation guidance: This subdomain should be activated towards the final stages of cooperative work and maintained throughout. Early implementation of AI-assisted dissemination also supports data-informed decision-making and enables real-time adjustments, thereby enhancing the long-term impact.
This roadmap synthesises the core outcomes of the UNESCO 2025 Residency. It contributes to the broader field of open education by offering a transferable and policy-aligned strategy for advancing international collaboration. By aligning empirical findings with international policy frameworks, it addresses challenges of educational equity, innovation, and sustainability in the digital era. Its modular and layered structure allows adaptation across diverse contexts while maintaining coherence with the principles of open education, particularly equity, inclusion, and collaborative knowledge production.
The roadmap positions open education as a global ecosystem of shared responsibility, where AI supports lifelong learning as a structuring element rather than as an external tool. From this perspective, AI strengthens institutional readiness, facilitates distributed authorship, and supports the co-construction of learning pathways. The model promotes a shift from content delivery to collaborative knowledge creation, where learners act as active contributors in environments that integrate problem-solving and ethical reflection.
In the broader literature, this approach differs from previous studies that have primarily examined AI in instructional support or content delivery (e.g., Eremeev, Paniavin & Marenkov 2024; Mashilo & Shekgola 2024). Rather than focusing on automation, the roadmap advances a systemic framework that conceptualises AI as an enabler of international cooperation. It integrates normative policy frameworks with empirical evidence, providing a transferable structure for coordinating global educational collaboration. This contribution addresses a gap in the literature by reframing the role of AI in open education from a technical support function to a structural mediation approach.
4. Discussion
International cooperation initiatives in open education require policy alignment and institutional readiness to generate scalable and sustainable impact. Figure 5 shows that countries such as Mexico, Peru, and Colombia participated across all five UNESCO action areas. This pattern suggests a broad institutional engagement and thematic alignment with the goals of the residency, rather than symbolic leadership. These data are consistent with Ramírez-Montoya, Oliva-Córdova and Patiño (2023) on institutional ecosystems in Latin America and de Wit and Altbach’s (2020) concept of enabling platforms. National participation can therefore be analysed not as a symbolic indicator, but in terms of the extent and intensity of engagement that can inform regional planning.
Co-authorship and shared design emerged as key mechanisms to translate policy into action. The Manifesto Chapter Book, co-developed by interdisciplinary teams, documented strategic proposals aligned with global frameworks. Rather than focusing on the quality of the texts, their structure and themes reveal convergence with the OER Recommendation (2019) and the Dubai Declaration (2024a). This is consistent with Ossiannilsson’s (2019) emphasis on participatory authorship and Hodgkinson-Williams and Trotter’s (2018) notion of epistemic justice, reinforcing the relevance of guided co-construction as a mechanism for transnational cooperation.
Another important insight from the residency is that building transversal competencies should be an intentional component of collaborative educational initiatives. Figure 6a highlights participants’ emphasis on open education, formative practices, and open science as central themes. Figure 6b shows greater focus on research, digital fluency, and communication, all of which are essential for international cooperation. These findings are consistent with those of Jhangiani et al. (2024) and UNESCO (2021), underscoring the need for cooperation programs to explicitly include the development of global competencies, digital fluency, and research skills as design objectives, rather than treating them as secondary outcomes.
A further lesson from this experience is the importance of creating systemic frameworks that enable coordination, participation, and sustainable knowledge sharing. The roadmap presented in Figure 7 synthesises these findings through three interrelated domains: Enabling Conditions, Cooperative Processes, and Sustainability Mechanisms. These categories emerged inductively from empirical analysis and reflect both operational and normative alignment. The model also positions AI as a transversal enabler, supporting coordination, participation, and knowledge circulation. In this sense, the roadmap contributes to ongoing debates on how global frameworks can be operationalised and highlights AI’s potential as a socio-technical infrastructure for governance, participation, and the flow of knowledge in open education systems.
4.1 Contribution to the literature
This study contributes to the literature on open education and AI in three ways. First, it offers one of the first empirically grounded models that illustrates how AI can support the structuring of international cooperation in open education. Second, it bridges theoretical discussions on global educational governance with practical design insights derived from a UNESCO-led residency. Third, it responds to calls for policy-aligned innovation by integrating normative frameworks (e.g., UNESCO OER 2019, Dubai Declaration 2024) into an actionable roadmap, thus advancing the field from both conceptual and operational standpoints.
5. Conclusion
This study examined how AI can support and structure international cooperation in open education through a triangulated analysis of the UNESCO/ICDE 2025 Residency. Evidence from participation data, co-authorship of the manifesto, and survey responses supported the development of an AI-driven roadmap, articulated around three interdependent domains: enabling conditions, cooperative processes, and sustainability mechanisms.
The study provides four main contributions: a) the translation of global frameworks into locally grounded strategies through co-authored outputs (Manifesto Chapter Book); b) strengthened engagement with open education themes and transversal competencies, including research, digital fluency, and communication; c) an empirically derived conceptual framework structured around three domains that inform both theoretical understanding and practical applications; and d) the positioning of AI as a backbone for process orchestration, design mediation, and open knowledge dissemination.
Therefore, the AI-driven model is scalable and validated in a real-life context due to: a) its demonstrated capacity to articulate interdisciplinary and international cooperation through AI-enabled platforms; b) the production of concrete outputs, such as the manifesto and its chapters, which confirm the feasibility of multilingual and collaborative knowledge construction; and c) the generation of positive experiential outcomes, including professional development, appropriation of global frameworks, and the intention to replicate practices in local contexts. The modular design further supports adaptation to diverse institutional, cultural, and technological settings.
For practitioners, the roadmap serves as a guide for designing equitable and AI-supported collaboration initiatives. For researchers and policymakers, it demonstrates the relevance of AI not merely as a technical resource but as a structuring principle that shapes participation, coordination, and sustainability in international education.
Despite its contributions, the study is limited by its single-case design and reliance on self-reported data. Future research should test the roadmap in diverse contexts, evaluate its adaptability across institutional types, and examine the sustained effects of AI-supported cooperation frameworks. Longitudinal studies are particularly necessary to evaluate the long-term effects of this model on equity, transparency, and ethical collaboration in open education.
Acknowledgements
This work was developed in the framework of the activities of the UNESCO/ICDE Chair Open Educational Movement for Latin America (Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico). Academic support for the construction of academic networks is gratefully acknowledged. Also, the support of the ‘Challenge-Based Research Funding Program 2023’, Project ID #IJXT070-23EG99001, titled ‘Complex Thinking Education for All (CTE4A): A Digital Hub and School for Lifelong Learners.’ and technical support from the Writing Lab, Institute for the Future of Education.
Competing Interests
María Soledad Ramírez-Montoya served as one of the editors of this special collection but, as a co-author, did not take part in any editorial decisions relating to this paper. The authors have no competing interests to declare.