he International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE) is the leading global membership organization for the open and distance education community, and is open to institutions, educational authorities, commercial actors, and individuals. ICDE has consultative partner status with UNESCO and shares UNESCO’s key value – the universal right to education for all. ICDE further derives its position from the unique knowledge and experience of its members throughout the world in the development and use of new methodologies and emerging technologies. ICDE was founded in 1938 in Canada as the International Council for Correspondence Education and today has members from over 60 countries worldwide. ICDE's Permanent Secretariat is in Oslo, Norway, and has been hosted by this country on a permanent basis since 1988. ICDE is supported by the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research and by membership fees. World Conference The biennial ICDE World Conference on Open and Distance Education is widely recognized as the leading world event in open and distance education and offers a forum for the presentation of cutting edge developments, network building, and professional development. The World Conference attracts an average of 1,000 participants from around the globe representing the research community, teaching staff, management of educational institutions, the public sector, and both training companies and suppliers from the private sector. For a resume of the ICDE World Conference please click on the document image on the right. It was announced at the 24th World Conference held 2-5 October 2011 in Indonesia by host institution Universitas Terbuka, that the host of the 25th ICDE World Conference on Open and Distance Learning in 2013 will be Tianjin Open University, China. President of Tianjin Open University, Professor FENG Xuefei, gave a presentation of venue for 25th ICDE World Conference during the closing session.