Cross-institutional collaboration secures funding for Growing Open Agriculture, a national agriculture OER project

16 Oct 2026

We are pleased to announce that our national project Growing Open Agriculture: a collaborative Open Educational Resource (OER) for innovation in agriculture curriculum has been awarded $8,730 in funding through the Australian Council of Deans of Agriculture 2026 Collaborative Grants Scheme.

Led by Associate Professor Kim Johnson from La Trobe University’s School of Agriculture, Biomedicine and Environment, the project brings together teaching and library staff from universities including UNE, UQ and Charles Sturt University.

Its foundations were established through earlier collaborative work, including an environmental scan by Shuyi Jiang (a 2025 Library placement student), which identified gaps in the content, scope and use of agriculture textbooks across Australasia.

Early work has already established a strong foundation for the project. It will build on this foundation by:

• investigating current learning and teaching needs through surveys and research
• identifying opportunities to address gaps in agriculture curriculum resources
• building a cross-institutional community of practice to support collaboration and shared learning
• developing the foundations for a sustainable, nationally relevant agriculture OER.

We welcome your interest – particularly teaching staff, open practitioners, library staff and others involved in agriculture education. If you would like to stay in touch with project updates or explore opportunities to participate, please express your interest.