This paper presents the work of the eMundus project that began in October 2013 and reports on the project activities to date. The aim of eMundus is to strengthen cooperation among HE institutions from the involved regions (EU, Brazil, Mexico, Russia, Indonesia, Canada and New Zealand) and globally, by exploring the potential of Open Approaches (e.g. OER, MOOCs and Virtual Mobility amongst others) to support long term, balanced, inter-cultural academic partnerships for improving learning and teaching through Open Education approaches. The project’s vision is that Open Education should not be seen solely as a solution to the urging challenges of reducing the unitary cost of higher education - moving towards a “market-oriented” global higher education system, but rather as a way to help establish long-term international partnerships, aiming for an open international setting where universities cooperate on the basis of their capacity not only to attract international students but to meaningfully share experiences with counterpart universities.