Colin de la Higuera is Professor at Nantes University (France). During his career, he has been involved in a number of research themes in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence.
He has been chairman of the International Community in Grammatical Inference (2002-2007), the founding president of the SIF (the French Informatics Society) in 2013, and is currently a trustee of the Knowledge for All foundation.
In 2017, based on the project Class’Code he contributed to launch in France, UNESCO created a Chair in Technologies for the Training of Teachers by Open Educational Resources at University of Nantes. In 2021 UNESCO renewed the Chair in “Open Educational Resources and Artificial Intelligence”. In 2023, UNESCO created a Unitwin Network in Open Education (UNOE), with 16 partners from 14 countries; Colin is the coordinator of this network, launched on June 26th, 2024.
Colin de la Higuera is actively engaged with Open Education. He has given many talks on the topic, specially linking the issues of open education with those of Artificial Intelligence.
In Nantes, Colin and his team from the Chair have been involved in the policies leading to opening up the education. Colin is also in charge of the open education aspects of the Alliance EUniWell.
Colin de la Higuera was Rapporteur at the interministerial meeting of May 2019 which prepared the UNESCO 2019 recommendation.
Between the projects he has been involved in concerning Open Education, let us mention:
- X5-GON was a Horizon-2020 whose goal, a Europe funded project whose goal was to explore how artificial intelligence could be used to construct, manage a large set of OER.
- OpenGame was an Erasmus+ (2019-2021) European project in which a serious game for open education was built.
- AI4T was another European project (2021-2024) resulting in courseware for teachers addressing the issue of AI in education. One of the outcomes of AI4T was “AI for and by Teachers: the open textbook” published in 5 languages (https://pressbooks.pub/aiforteachers/).
- Univ-Ouverte@Maroc was a programme delivered online to hundreds of Moroccan teachers in 2022, on Open Education.
- The 2021 edition of the Open Education Global conference was held online in October 2021; Colin was co-conference chair.
- The 2022 edition of the Open Education Global conference, which was held at la Cité des Congrès of Nantes, in May 2022; Colin was co-conference chair.
- In 2023-2024, Colin de la Higuera has been teaching in a series of MasterCourses in the different public Universities in Morocco
- Since 2021, Colin and his team collaborate with the French Ministry of Education through numerous actions around AI and OE, including AI4T, webinars and seminars and the Groupe Thématique Numérique : Intelligence artificielle et Éducation Ouverte
Furthermore, Colin has been active in writing (Chaire UNESCO Relia, EUniWell Open Education blog), publishing and editing, and organizing events such as “AI and the ODDs” in Macao, 2019 or on “Women Empowerment and AI” in Paris, 2019.
Follow Colin de la Higuera on LinkedIn.
Colin is recognized for his vision and inspirational mentoring in the field of OE. His commitment to open access to educational resources and his collaboration with the French Ministry of Education are testament to his enduring leadership and influence.
Award Nominator
Professor Colin de la Higuera has an impressive range of achievements in Open Education, taking the subject at the highest level and globally for their policies advancement, publishing articles and books, hosting the conference in his university and also taking care to create the necessary legal infrastructures to support his action and gain in funds and staff. He has demonstrated his leadership also by a real open mind, and his kindness. His actual achievements are remarkable and he has successfully given a dynamic at his own university, in France, in Europe and in many other institutions and countries, taking all the opportunities and enabling many others. Colin is recognized for his vision and inspirational mentoring in the field of OE. His commitment to open access to educational resources and his collaboration with any stakeholders, and new comers, are absolutely remarkable.
Award Reviewer
Explore more about this awardee…
- Colin de la Higuera remporte le prestigieux prix des Open Education Global Awards dans la catégorie Leadership (Euni Well blog, 16 Oct 2024 )
Podcasts from Open Education Global
Take a trip with us to France for our conversation with Colin de la Higuera, professor and researcher in computer science at Nantes Université as well the UNESCO Chair of Open Educational Resources and Artificial Intelligence. In 2024 Colin was recognized with an Open Education Award of Excellence for Leadership.
This episode was recorded June 13 2025, when the nomination process for the 2025 OEAwards program was in progress with the intention of building enthusiasm for more nominations. We got off track in our production cycle! And since then the 2025 winners were recently announced but we are catching up on our recordings.
There is still much value in learning more about the awardees and in this case, we will hear about not only Colin’s thoughts about leadership, but the importance of the UNESCO Chair as being really a team effort, Colin’s research and insights on artificial intelligence and multilingual blogging, advocating for open education- especially for the learner– and more insight into his life and work.
at Descript.com
In This Episode
FYI: For the sake of experimentation and the spirit of transparency, this set of show notes alone was generated by the AI “Underlord” in the Descript editor we use to produce OEGlobal Voices.
In this episode of the OE Global Voices podcast, host Alan Levine speaks with Colin de la Higuera, a UNESCO Chair in Open Educational Resources and Artificial Intelligence at Nantes University in France. They discuss the significance of the UNESCO Chair, the complexities of organizing during COVID, and the transformative potential of AI in education. Colin also shares insights from his work on multilingual open textbooks and blogs, his perspectives on leadership, and the importance of equitable education. Tune in for an engaging conversation that underscores the value of recognition in the field of open education.
- 00:00 Intro Music and Highlighted Quote
- 00:51 Meet Colin de la Higuera
- 05:31 Colin’s Background and Education
- 07:50 Journey into Open Education and AI
- 12:29 UNESCO Chair and Leadership
- 20:09 Current Projects and Interests
- 25:51 Encouraging Nominations and Recognition
- 30:27 Conclusion and Farewell
(end of AI generated show notes)
Additional Links and Quotes for Episode 86
There’s a lot of things published [about AI in Education]. One of the things that in my view is very absent is, is the “why” question, right? Which is “why do we learn?” Can we capture, why does a learner, this learner might be 12-year-old or might be 20 years old– why does she get up in the morning and go and learn?
So it’s essential we understand this because, depending on the reasons that motivate this person, AI will or will not have an effect. Or we’ll have a positive effect or a negative effect, or we can actually use AI and divert it positively or at the contrary, if we’re not careful, AI is just going to break that reason to pieces.
And if the whole reason for which that person was happy to get up in the morning to go learn is now vanished because of AI, we’ve had it.
Colin de la Higuera
- Colin de la Higuera 2024 Open Education Award for Excellence in Leadership (OEGlobal)
- Open Education Week 2025 live launch (with Colin as guest)
- OEGlobal 2021 Online Conference (hosted by Nantes University)
- OEGlobal 2022 Conference, in Person Congress in Nantes
- Nantes Université
- UNESCO Chair in Open Educational Resources and Artificial Intelligence (Nantes Université)
- AI for Teachers: an Open Textbook (AI4T, Erasmus+)
- 23 good reasons… to adopt Open Education (UNOE, the Unitwin Network on Open Education)
- 23 good reasons for open education – the recap (EUniWell open education blog)
So leadership I suggest means that when you are asked to talk about these things, you respect your own opinion and you don’t just have to come up saying what other people have said before. Okay, so leadership means that you’re able to synthesize, obviously from the work of other people, from history, from research, but you can come up with new ideas.
You’ve got the legitimacy to speak out and to speak up. You’re making a risk also. It doesn’t mean you’re some suddenly, non- vulnerable. People can say, “Hey, what you’re saying is absolute rubbish now,” but, you are allowed to say things.
So this comes also with the UNESCO Chair being allowed to speak, being allowed to make, not just claims, but to make an analysis, which may not be the one that is done by everybody else. I think that’s what leadership is about itself. It’s also about convincing people that it’s fun to do things or it’s interesting to look at things.
Colin de la Higuera
Listen to more from our episodes recorded with Open Education Awards for Excellence winners.
Our open licensed music for this episode is a track called Leader of Tomorrow by X-Cute that is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerciallicense. Like most of our podcast music, it was found at the Free Music Archive (see our full FMA playlist).
