STELLAR presented to UK Minister for Higher Education

David Lammy, the Minister of State for Higher Education and Innovation, visited the Open University on Thursday 26th of February during the STELLAR kick off meeting. His visit was hosted in the Knowledge Media Institute, and he was shown work from a range of innovations and elearning projects including the STELLAR Network of Excellence.

Mr Lammy, the Member of Parliament for Tottenham, was promoted from Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills to his current position as Minister of State in October 2008. He is very interested in understanding the role of the UK in international online education, and in looking more generally at the Open University’s leadership role in elearning practice and research.

This visit came on the same day as the formal kick off meeting (also in KMi) of the STELLAR Network, which is being coordinated by the Open University and which represents a significant milestone in connecting the UK into European excellence in Technology Enhanced Learning. Peter Scott spent some time briefing the Minister about STELLAR’s aim to connect to policy makers and to the government decision-makers all over Europe; so this was a very auspicious start to this work.