This came through in one of the email lists I’m subscribed to.  I thought the articles were interesting on the importance of Open GIS and studies/research in academia.  I know we in goverment GIS appreciate and reap the benefits of Open GIS standards and software solutions.  Here is the posting (note the AAG conference starts tomorrow in Tampa, Florida):

Dear Colleague,

As some of you know, there is pre-AAG workshop on "Open GIS: New 
Opportunities for Research and Education" on Monday (7th April) that 
Prof. Sergio Rey (Arizona State University) and Prof. Daniel Sui 
(Ohio State University) are organising.  The primary goal of this 
workshop is to bring together researchers from academia, industry, 
and government agencies to discuss the new opportunities and set the 
agenda for Open GIS research and education in light of new advances 
during the past five years.  An edited volume is planned based upon 
the talks given at this workshop.

The two background papers for the AAG meeting which might be of 
interest to you:

Open Regional Science by Sergio J. Rey (article here)

Opportunities and Impediments for Open GIS,Transactions in GIS
Volume 18, Issue 1, pages 1–24, February 2014
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/tgis.12075/abstract

It is only rarely fundamental changes happen in a discipline and 
OpenGIS is the fundamental change that has happened in Geospatial 
Science. The pace of change has been much beyond our expectations 
and I thank all universities who have already established and those 
in the process of establishing Open Source Geospatial Labs and all 
our colleagues in "Geo for All" initiative.

Our aim is to empower staff and students worldwide by using Free and 
Open Source GIS for education.  What is the point of teaching GIS to 
students (in both developed and developing countries) and taking away 
the tools from them after the course and telling them that now you 
need to buy these expensive proprietary software licences if you want 
to continue using them after their course (which is what the 
proprietary GIS vendors would like !)

I am determined to do everything in my abilities to make sure we can 
keep the windows of opportunities open for geospatial education for 
all students worldwide and for our future generations.  I am looking 
forward to work with you on this.

Best wishes,

Suchith Anand
University of Nottingham