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Recognition is not granted — it is practiced.
Recognition is not given — it is co-constructed. 
Recognition is not passive — it is transformative.

Foreword

The Open Recognition Manifesto is the culmination of a process initiated in 2016 with the Bologna Open Recognition Declaration, and advanced in 2024 through the Paris Declaration on the Equality of Recognitions.

These milestones marked critical turning points in how we understand recognition — not as a mere reward or institutional validation, but as a social, political, and epistemic act. They called for a shift beyond hierarchical, centralized, and exclusionary systems, toward a recognition culture that is plural, participatory, and open.

When we stop viewing recognition as a final outcome and begin to understand it as an ongoing process, we see that it becomes the very weave of the social fabric — the invisible yet essential force that binds individuals, communities, and institutions. Recognition is not simply a transaction or an act of validation. It is a relational practice, one that continually shapes how we live, learn, work, and contribute to the world around us.

Before it becomes an artefact — before it takes the form of a badge, certificate, or formal endorsement — recognition is a practice and an experience. It lives in the words we offer, the gestures we receive, the trust we cultivate, and the meanings we co-create.

To speak of recognition as a thread in the social fabric is to affirm that it is:

• Interwoven rather than top-down: Recognition is not bestowed from above but emerges through mutual, participatory, and networked interactions.
• A continuous process rather than a final judgment: It is not about sealing one’s status, but about sustaining relationships and enriching connections.
• More about relationships than transactions: Recognition is not something granted by institutions alone, but something that binds people together in a dynamic web of meaning.

This Manifesto is not a technical specification or a policy directive. It is a shared invitation: to reclaim recognition as a commons, to honour the diversity of knowing and contributing, and to co-create recognition ecosystems that are just, inclusive, and transformative.

Let this not be a conclusion, but a beginning

Preamble — The Struggle “by” Recognition

Recognition has long been framed as a struggle for validation within existing social, economic, and institutional structures. We reject this passive formulation. Recognition is not something to be granted by power or authority but something to be actively reclaimed and co-created. Recognition is not a commodity, a credential, or a hierarchical bestowal. It is a commons, a relational force, and a radical act of agency and emancipation. This Manifesto calls for a paradigm shift: from recognition as a bestowed privilege to recognition as a practice of reciprocity, justice, and transformation.

1. Recognition Commons — Not a Commodity

Recognition is not a finite resource to be distributed by gatekeepers but a commons that thrives in circulation. Like knowledge in an open society, recognition grows when opened up and shared and diminishes when monopolised. The current systems of recognition — academic credentials, institutional certifications, algorithmic reputations — tend to reproduce exclusion and dependency. We reclaim recognition as a decentralised, distributed, participatory, and co-creative process.

We commit to:

• Design open recognition ecosystems that empower individuals and communities to recognise each other beyond systemic and institutional constraints.
• Challenge the commodification and quantification of recognition in corporate, academic and digital platforms.
• Promote peer-driven, community-based recognition practices that function outside extractive economic and other models.

2. Recognition Capital — A New Form of Social Wealth

Recognition capital is not about accumulation but about reciprocal investment in human achievements and potential. Unlike economic capital, which thrives on scarcity, recognition capital flourishes in abundance. Recognition is both a social currency and an ethical obligation and responsibility — a way to nurture individual and collective agency.

We commit to:

• Develop models of recognition capital that prioritise social justice, access, equity, and individual and community empowerment.
• Explore the value chain of recognition across micro (individual), meso (community), and macro (societal) levels.
• Investigate the ethical dimensions of gaining, sharing, and sustaining recognition capital without reinforcing inequality.

3. Recognition Epistemics — Breaking Epistemic Hegemony

Recognition has been historically confiscated by dominant social and political structures that define whose knowledge, experience, and identity are valued. The hegemony of Western validation systems continues to marginalise indigenous, informal, and non-institutional forms of expertise and cultural expression. We must dismantle these hierarchies and foster a decolonised recognition.

We commit to:

• Advocate for pluralistic epistemologies that recognise diverse ways of knowing, understanding and being.
• Support the recognition of informal, indigenous, and lived experiences as legitimate sources of knowledge and expertise.
• Resist hegemonic recognition regimes that elevate Western academic, institutional, and corporate validation to the status of a norm, while deliberately excluding local and community-based recognition practices.

4. Recognition Policies — From Conformance to Emancipatory Frameworks

Recognition is the thread from which the social fabric is woven  — an unseen yet vital force that binds individuals, communities, and institutions through an ongoing interplay of relationships, shared meanings, and mutual trust. To move beyond mere conformance, policies of recognition must cultivate the conditions for this thread to be woven collectively, by many hands.

We commit to:

• Design recognition policies as ethical, inclusive, and participatory processes  — enabling diverse forms of recognition to emerge from within communities.
• Support the development of horizontal, distributed recognition systems that foster trust, belonging, and shared meaning.
• Promote lifelong and life-wide recognition as a way to sustain the fabric of social life, interweaving experience, contribution, and connection.

5. Recognition Pedagogies — a Dialogic Learning

Some formal educational systems have reduced recognition artifacts to the granting of academic diplomas and credentials, ignoring the continuous, relational, and formative aspects of learning acquisition and recognition. We advocate for a pedagogical shift where recognition is embedded throughout the learning process, not just at its conclusion.

We commit to:

• Expanding recognition in education and training beyond formal assessments and accreditation to include lived experience, peer learning, and community engagement.
• Cultivating recognition literacies that enable learners to recognise and be recognised in meaningful ways.
• Transforming educational and training systems and institutions into recognition ecosystems where students, teachers, and communities co-construct value.

6. Recognition Technologies — Tools for Emancipation, Not Control

The digital age presents new opportunities and challenges for recognition. While digital platforms enable new forms of visibility, they also introduce mechanisms of algorithmic surveillance and control, commodification, and reputation economies. We must ensure that recognition technologies serve emancipation and social connection rather than exploitation and competition.

The digital era presents new opportunities and challenges for recognition, but also poses threats linked to algorithmic surveillance, reputation economies, and digital exclusion dynamics. We must ensure that recognition technologies serve emancipation and social connection, rather than exploitation and competition.

We commit to:

• Develop open-source, sustainable, transparent, decentralised recognition approaches and technologies that serve the needs of individuals and communities rather than corporate profit — digital credentials, AI, etc..
• Ensure that digital recognition enhances and expands the notions of autonomy, diversity, and solidarity rather than reinforcing existing narrow hierarchies.
• Design recognition approaches and technologies that foster access, participatory governance, co-creation, and shared ownership.

7. Recognition Practices — Building a More Just and Reciprocal World

Recognition is both a practice grounded in everyday actions and a praxis — a conscious, transformative engagement with the world. Recognition is also a human right, a demand for justice, a social responsibility, and an emancipatory act. It is not confined to institutional approval or formal validation, but rooted in daily life  — in our relationships, workplaces, civic spaces, and cultural practices.

We commit to:

• Practice open and reciprocal recognition in all spheres of life — education, culture, work, activism, and governance.
• Support recognition practices that empower marginalised voices and challenge the invisibilisation of excluded communities.
• Build recognition commons where individuals and communities collectively construct new forms of social value beyond the logic of markets and hierarchy.

Conclusion — A Call to Action

This Manifesto is not an endpoint but an invitation — to rethink, reimagine, and reclaim recognition as a radical, emancipatory practice. We call on educators, civil society, policymakers, institutional and private decision makers, technologists, and community leaders to join in building a recognition economy that values reciprocity over accumulation, plurality over hegemony, and solidarity over competition.