UK universities embrace the free, open, online future of higher education powered by The Open University

The Open University has announced its intention to launch Futurelearn, an independent company that will increase accessibility to higher education (HE) for students across the UK and the rest of the world. The universities of Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, East Anglia, Exeter, King’s College London, Lancaster, Leeds, Southampton, St Andrews and Warwick have all signed up to join Futurelearn with the intention of bringing together a range of free, open, online courses.

Responding to the announcement, Professor Rebecca Taylor, Professor of Economics and Dean of The Open University Business School and Law School said:

"Futurelearn is an exciting development from The Open University and its partners. The internet has had a huge impact on the way Business and Law education can be delivered and this initiative will unquestionably improve access to our high quality curriculum and the opportunities for students to engage in both informal and formal learning. The Open University Business and Law Schools are very excited about the opportunity that this represents for our current and potential students and, working with a group of highly respected partners, we are proud to be leading the next step in online business, management and legal education."

Martin Bean, the Vice-Chancellor of The Open University, said:

“MOOCs (Massive Online Open Course) represent an enormous development in higher education, one that has the potential to bring about long-lasting change to the HE sector. The OU has decades of experience in world-class distance learning – each year we teach around 250,000 registered students, with literally millions of others accessing our free, informal, online offerings. Futurelearn will take this proud heritage and work with some of Britain’s best-known universities to write the next chapter in the story of British higher education.”

Futurelearn will announce future details of its structure and courses early in the New Year.

More information on Futurelearn can be found here.