SCORE2020 is building on a project consortium of regional players in the field of open, online and flexible education. The partnership is building regional expertise centres on open education and MOOCs (Massive Open On-line Courses) with the support of the European platform of OpenupEd experts. 1. The regional expertise centres will promote, stimulate and activate the development and the delivery of MOOCs and other modes of open education as well as use of MOOCs in their region. 2. The regional expertise centres constitute together a European strategic partnership, which is supported by the European OpenupEd MOOCs platform. This will valorise the MOOCs developed in different regions in a broader European and global context. It also will strengthen each of the regional centres by sharing and developing transnational expertise of which each can benefit. Together, the regional expertise centres form a European partnership to exchange and jointly expertise and to develop a common approach to quality in MOOCS. WHY? Because, Europe needs to invest in flexible educational solutions. MOOCs is an important tool to enable these changes. MOOCs in essence combines the driver of new technology with the opportunities of Open Education and the open development movements. This is also embraced by the EC in their OER agenda; “Digital learning and recent trends in (OER) are enabling fundamental changes in the education world, expanding the educational offer beyond its traditional formats and borders. … Europe should exploit the potential of OER much more than is currently the case.” SCORE2020 aims to support this by enabling regional expertise centres to promote quality European MOOCs within a national and European strategic partnership. The partnership consists of experts in the field of open education and MOOCs are coming from a combination of Open Universities and conventional universities that are exploring the opportunities of open education and MOOCs for some time now like the Open Universiteit Nederland (NL), UNED (E), the Norway Opening University (NOU, Norgesuniversitetet), Univerza v Ljublijana (SI), DCU – Dublin City University (IR), UNINETTUNO - UTIU(IT) and FIED – Fédération Interuniversitaire de l’Enseignent à Distance – (FR). Within the SCORE2020 project, these universities will work together on a European level to strengthen their European cooperation within OpenupEd as well as their national cooperation within new to be established regional centres of expertise. The project will enhance European collaboration between these regional centres in a strategic partnership that is coordinated by EADTU. These regional centres will be focussing on open education and will create synergetic connections to existing initiatives (e.g. on OER, e-learning, quality assessment, etc.). As such, it will incorporate previous projects and stimulate regional support centres. Partners in SCORE2020 believe that strong (regional) collaboration between all actors and stakeholders is needed such that professionals (academic, teachers, tutors, etc) and their institutions will become leading in the changes and new opportunities created by MOOCs and open education. This will include the role of governments as they are increasingly becoming aware of the drivers and of the possibilities of online and open education. The strategic partnership of these regional centres at the European level will generate a strong platform of exchange of expertise and experience that strengthens both levels. The approach is based on partners that are frontrunners with an imbedded position in the existing infrastructure to support others in the region. As such the project continues to build on the existing activities of each partner in their respective regions. The methodology aims to strengthen the efficiency, impact and quality of each regional centre, and moreover to increase the support in the innovative field of MOOCs and other forms of Open Education. To this end SCORE2020 partnership will focus on the following four themes organised in four respective work packages: - Support by awareness- and training materials - Instructional design models for MOOCs - Evidence based practices and quality of use - Organisation and business models for Regional Centre in European partnership In all, the project will create more innovative universities through the development and delivery of MOOCs and online/blended and open learning formats; will contribute to knowledge regions by MOOCs and open education; will create regional support centers for MOOCs, based on existing expert structures like Norgesuniversitetet, the OUNl, the Irish National Centre for Digital Higher Education and others. They will form a strategic partnership, which will result in synergies for the dissemination of MOOCs at the International level, QA of MOOCs and the development of expertise on the design and delivery of MOOCs, new pedagogies and subject- related aspects of MOOCs.