Open Recognition Manifesto

Abstract

This panel session traced the evolution and intent of the Open Recognition Manifesto (2025) as the latest step in a growing movement to reframe how societies value learning and contribution. Serge Ravet situated the Manifesto within earlier initiatives—beginning with the “Bologna Open Recognition Declaration” (2016), the creation of Reconnaître/Open Recognition Alliance (2018), and the Paris Declaration on the Equality of Recognitions (2024)—arguing that informal, semi-formal, and formal recognitions are all necessary and interdependent. He introduced a further effort to operationalize these ideas through a Recognition Practices Occupational Framework and emphasized a central shift: from “recognition of learning” or “recognition for learning” toward “recognition as learning,” where recognition is not an end-stage reward but inseparable from the lifelong process of meaning-making and belonging. 

Panelists expanded the Manifesto’s implications. Nan Travers highlighted how traditional systems often produce “learning injury” through under-recognition, misrecognition, or non-recognition, and called for full recognition of whole persons across their lives. Ruud Duvekot framed the Manifesto as a call to “storm the Bastille” of entrenched systems by beginning with self-recognition and professional role-modelling, replacing control-oriented assessment with trust, holistic judgment, and reflective practice. Julie Reddy connected open recognition to Ubuntu (“I am because you are”), emphasizing recognition as a human rights and social justice issue, and called for a visible community identity for open recognition practitioners. Simone Ravaioli reclaimed the manifesto as an artistic and visionary vehicle meant to stir imagination, proposing a future collection of lived stories as evidence of its principles. 

The discussion also surfaced cautions: Alan Mandell warned that recognition movements can become systems of control and ideology, risking distortion of liberatory aims. Contributions from CLOCK (“Collaborative Learning Open Curriculum Kit”) and others emphasized community-based validation, the harms of exclusionary practices, and the need for “do no harm” principles, cultural inclusion, and long-term responsibility (including “seven generations” thinking developed by Indigenous peoples.) The session concluded by positioning the Manifesto as a flexible starting point—inviting participants to “hack” it, expand it, and enact it through practice that builds trust, reciprocity, and collective flourishing. 

Keywords: open recognition, recognition as learning, lifelong and informal learning 

This abstract was AI-generated from the original recording of the session and then revised by the editors for accuracy and clarity.