The impact of COVID-19 on higher education : a review of emerging evidence : executive summary

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in temporary physical closures of schools and higher education institutions around the world. In higher education, approximately 220 million students globally have been affected due to the disruption caused by COVID-19, leaving policymakers and educational institutions with unprecedented challenges such as how to mitigate learning losses, how to deploy remote learning, how to safely reopen educational institutions and how to ensure that underrepresented, vulnerable and disadvantaged learners are not left behind. The COVID-19 pandemic has already had an unprecedented impact on higher education worldwide in virtually all aspects of its functioning. In the academic year 2019/2020, the pandemic transformed the way teaching took place, accelerating transformation that was already taking place in the form of online learning and teaching. The pandemic has also had direct impact on how research is carried out, on university operations (in terms of campus closures and the shift to online learning) and on university governance, with management staff needing to take a range of emergency decisions and allow additional flexibility in many areas of activity. The pandemic has also highlighted the importance of universities' community engagement. This analytical report provides a synthesis of the emerging evidence on what impact COVID-19 has had on higher education in Europe, with a special focus on three thematic areas: teaching and learning; the social dimension of higher education (i.e. the effect on underrepresented, vulnerable and disadvantaged learners); and student mobility. Drawing upon 14 rapid-response surveys carried out in 2020 by university networks, student organisations and researchers, as well as over 50 journal articles, reports and publications, the analytical report synthesises emerging evidence into three levels of impact of COVID-19: - immediate impact (how the pandemic affected institutions and learners in the 2019/2020 academic year) - short-term impact (how the pandemic is affecting or is likely to affect the current 2020/2021 academic year) - medium-term impact (how the effects of the pandemic are likely to affect higher education systems, institutions and students by 2025). At the end of each thematic section, policy implications and policy recommendations are included, listing actions to be taken at the level of higher education systems (by transnational, national or regional authorities) and actions to be taken at the level of higher education institutions (by university leaders, teaching staff and student support services).