A public, shareable, editable calendar of the conferences, summits, and moments that shape global education each year. Started by Euan Wilmshurst and added to by the field. With dedicated tabs for Education in Emergencies and UNGA week.
And no single body has ever mapped it. So we built one together.
Every year, the people working on global education (governments, multilaterals, funders, advocates, NGOs, networks, researchers) show up at the same set of moments to shape policy, build coalitions, and move money. The big anchors are obvious. The rest of the calendar is not.
The problem is that nobody holds the full map. Each of us has a partial view of the year, weighted toward our networks, our sectors, our regions. Diaries get planned in silos. Coalitions miss each other in the same building. Important moments get crowded; quieter moments get overlooked.
The Global Education Events Guide is a small attempt to fix that. One spreadsheet, open to anyone in the field, where we map the year together. Add the events you know about. Use the events others have added. Plan a smarter year for your team and a more coordinated year for the field.
The spreadsheet has multiple tabs, each focused on a different part of the year. One row per event, with the practical detail you need to plan around it.
The main tab. The year's full sweep of education events. The headline moments are there (Davos, UNGA, CIES, WISE, Skoll), but so are the regional summits, network convenings, and smaller gatherings that often matter more for specific strategies and portfolios.
A dedicated tab for the Education in Emergencies community, maintained in coordination with the team at EiE Hub, so the EiE field has a clean view of the convenings it plans the year around.
A focused tab for events during United Nations General Assembly week in New York each September. Built so the year's densest stretch has its own clean view, with hosts, timings, locations, and points of contact alongside the basics.
For every event: a short description, the dates, the location, how to attend (open registration, by invite, member-only, application required), and a link to the official site where there is one.
Each event flagged for whether it offers space for side-events. A quick filter for teams planning their advocacy moments and partner meetings around bigger convenings.
Live in OneDrive. View it in your browser, sort and filter for what you need, or sign in to add events. Share the link freely with colleagues.
Adding an event takes a couple of minutes. The guide gets better every time someone does.
Click through to OneDrive. Anyone with the link can view and edit, no login required. Microsoft may suggest signing in but you can dismiss the prompts and contribute anonymously.
Drop in events you are tracking, major or niche, global or regional. Use the right tab (Education & Related Events, Education in Emergencies, or UNGA week). Fill in the columns you can and leave the rest for others.
One simple norm: please don't edit events that are not yours. If you spot something wrong, leave a comment in the cell or email enquiries@kw-strategy.com and we will get it to the right person. Backups are kept, so accidental changes can be rolled back.
Send the guide to colleagues, partners, and grantees. The wider the contributor base, the more complete and useful the picture for everyone.
Anyone whose work depends on knowing where the field is convening this year.
Euan has spent 30 years working across the global education calendar, from running advocacy and external affairs at the LEGO Foundation, to twice serving on the board of the Global Partnership for Education and on its Executive Committee. He chairs and sits on boards including Play England, STIR Education, Home-Start UK, and Svitlo Education, and is a Salzburg Global Fellow.
The guide started as a personal habit, a working list to plan his own year. It grew because the field kept asking for it.
It is not a curated list. It is a public, editable, shareable file that anyone in the field can add to. We keep an eye on it, take regular backups, and host it here at KW Strategy in the spirit of a sector that gets more done when it coordinates well.
Yes. No paywall, no email capture, no login to view, and no login needed to edit either. Anyone with the link can add events as an anonymous contributor. Microsoft's interface may suggest signing in but those prompts can be dismissed. We keep regular backups so accidental changes can always be rolled back.
The field does. The guide is intentionally broad and covers early years, K-12, higher education, skills, finance, climate, equity, AI, technology, and research. If your work touches education and someone you respect would care about the date, it belongs in the guide.
Please don't edit it. Leave a comment in the cell, or email enquiries@kw-strategy.com and we will get it to the right person to update. The simple norm is: only edit events that are yours.
Don't worry about it. We keep an eye on the file and take regular backups, so accidental deletions or edits can be rolled back. The guide is hardier than it looks.
Honest answer: I started it in Excel for myself in 2023 and the platform stuck. The link for this year's edition is already shared widely, so changing platforms now would orphan everyone who has it bookmarked. We'll consider Google Sheets for the 2027 edition.
Because both have their own rhythm. The EiE community plans its year around a different set of convenings to the wider education sector, and UNGA week in September is dense enough that it deserves its own focused view. Splitting them out makes each tab cleaner and easier to use.
Yes. A new edition is opened for the year ahead, with past years archived for reference. The URL of this page stays the same so you can bookmark it.
Please do. The link is meant to be shared widely. If you embed or quote any of it elsewhere, a link back to this page is appreciated so people can find the latest version.
Open the 2026 guide, use what is there, and add what you know. The more contributors, the more useful it is for everyone.
