The guiding question was how one can address and improve learning quality through innovation and eLearning in order to modernize lifelong learning and thereby improve the impact of education and training in society. "Often forgotten, but very important, is the fun factor that high-quality education needs to increase to support the learners' motivation and consequently their learning results," Dr Stracke said.

In his plea for more fun in education, Dr Stracke was echoed and supported by Prof Dr Hwang Dae-Joon from Korea in another keynote. Furthermore, Dr Stracke underlined the need for innovative quality education as globalisation, worldwide connectivity, and online services, which are changing the world of work, as well as all of our lives and society itself. The TELIT Research Institute, Dr Stracke’s academic home, is addressing these challenges through its focus on technology-enhanced learning and innovative education and training.

Today, educational change through refined pedagogies that include the fun factor has become extremely important in achieving the highest learning quality possible. For this purpose, the new concept of "open learning" has been introduced to address quality education. Efforts towards opening up education through innovations like online cooperation, MOOCs, and technology-enhanced learning have achieved broad awareness and global consensus. New policies on open learning at the international level, such as the OER Declaration by UNESCO, have supported this trend.

ICORE, the International Community for Open Research and Open Education, was established with this objective in 2013 and launched at the international LINQ Conference in Rome in order to promote open education and its connections with open research. ICORE is collaborating with leading European and international organizations motivated by a common vision, joining efforts for future strategies and activities that facilitate innovative learning in schools, universities, societies, and at work.

To support this objective, Open Discovery Space was initiated as the major European initiative and community supported by European Commission. ODS is introducing eLearning in 28 countries and over 2,000 schools throughout Europe and is helping more than 10,000 teachers open up and modernize school education. It is supported by the initiative Inspiring Science Education, focusing on improving STEM education in Europe through high-quality, open educational resources based on real-world problems. Their presentation at the UNESCO Conference IITE-2014 was welcomed and well appreciated. These projects share a core concept in dynamic interaction between educational actors such as leaders, teachers, and policymakers, advancing learning relevance and flexibility in a quickly changing world.

Alexander Khoroshilov, UNESCO IITE Officer-in-Charge, Conference Co-Chair and Organiser of the International UNESCO Conference IITE-2014 was satisfied with the speeches and discussions, resulting in a resolution approved at the final plenary. He was pleased to welcome more than 300 participants from four continents at the National University Mephi in Moscow.