The EDEN Fellows Council is a department of EDEN Digital Learning Europe, formed by all those who have received an EDEN Fellow or Senior Fellow award. The EDEN Fellows Council was established at the 2018 EDEN UK Annual Conference in Genoa, with the first elected representatives taking office in 2019. Ebba Ossiannilsson, Swedish Association for Distance Education, Sweden, became EDEN Fellow in 2014 and EDEN DLE Senior Fellow in 2022. In Nov 2022 she was granted lifetime membership in EDEN DLE.

Recognition of professional excellence

The EDEN Fellowship Programme was created in 1997 with the first Awards presented at the 2007 EDEN Annual Conference in Naples. The purpose of the EDEN Fellows Programme is to provide professional recognition, validation, and support to EDEN members in the field of online, open, and distance education in Europe. The established formal award schemes are the EDEN Fellow and Senior Fellow recognitions.

The role of the EDEN Fellows Council is a) to provide strategic input to the EDEN DLE Management Board, drawing on the extensive experience and expertise in online, open, and distance education of the body of EDEN Fellows and Senior Fellows, and b) to act as ambassadors for EDEN and for the field of online, open and distance education with Europe and internationally. The Fellows Council is an advisory body and not part of the formal governance structure of EDEN.