Mission

The European Association of Distance Teaching Universities (EADTU) is the leading institutional university network for online, open and distance higher education. It is at the heart of innovation in the European Education Area, and in particular in the European Higher Education Area.

European online, open and distance higher education maintains an openness to learners through three critical features:

  • Student-centred teaching based on high quality learning environments;
  • Openness to learners through flexible, inclusive structures and methods that take higher education to students when and where they need it, increasingly but not exclusively through online technologies;
  • Networked education and mobility, where students can learn across national, sectoral and institutional boundaries.

EADTU's mission is to empower and support its members by:

  • supporting the development of online, open and flexible higher education:
  • developing and sustaining sectoral leadership at national, European and international level;
  • leveraging its quality assurance capabilities by creating an internationally recognized quality system in online, open and flexible higher education;
  • supporting the extension of learning opportunities and student mobility through networking and collaboration between institutions.

EADTU members share a commitment to equality of opportunity, the lifelong development of talent, and to meeting the needs of the economy, culture and civil society in Europe at regional, national and pan-European levels.

Strategic Objectives

In order to achieve EADTU’s mission over the coming years, we propose the following 10 strategic objectives.

Policy

1. Develop a vision for the role of blended, online, open and flexible education in the development of European higher education, and influence European policy in accordance with that vision.

2. Promote high quality online, open and flexible learning within the European learning space, to identify and serve the target student groups for online, open and distance learning.

3. Taking the leadership in the area of online, open and flexible education and sharing its expertise and experience to empower European universities in the deployment of online education

4. Contributing to the EHEA by the integration of continuous education and MOOCs and by developing on line models of international collaboration for university networks (e.g. networked courses/curricula and online/virtual mobility, international distributed classrooms)

Community of expertise

5. Be a valued source of information and policy intelligence to members.

6. Develop and maintain tools and services of benefit to members

7. Develop and maintain models for cooperation between members

8. Extend the scale and scope of active participation of members in the work of EADTU

Brand and reputation

9. Strengthen the brand of EADTU

10. Strengthen the position of EADTU through partnerships with other European and international organisations

We see these objectives as inter-relating and mutually reinforcing. The performance of the association will be reviewed annually against these objectives, which will themselves be kept under annual review and updated as necessary.