Valerij Dermol
Špela Majcen Marušič
Aleš Trunk
Nada Trunk Širca
Printed
2020 | ISBN 978-83-65020-31-4
Open Access
2021 | ISBN 978-83-65020-36-9 | PDF
In the New Year’s Eve, when the world was just about to enter the year 2020, the World Health Organisation received first reports of a previously unknown virus. The COVID-19 virus spread from China, reached Europe, and continued its migration towards the USA and Latin America, India, and Africa. Everyday lives were interrupted, businesses were temporarily closed, and the world came to almost a stop for a while. This book looks at how the COVID-19 lockdowns impacted higher education institutions in Europe. It starts with analysis of the general situation and response by the European Union Member States, followed by an overview of the role that the European Union institutions took on during the pandemic. It continues towards understanding immediate consequences for higher education institutions, with the main obvious change being a swift turn towards digitalisation. Furthermore, the authors look into how internationalisation of higher education institutions was impacted. A separate chapter is dedicated to own research, based on the answers specifically tailored to questionnaires that were shared among European higher education institutions inquiring about their individual responses to the COVID-19 related lockdowns. Finally, the book looks into the future and strives to forecast the new normal for the European Union as such, its policies, and relationships among Member States in the coming years. It furthermore recommends a new European financial system to mitigate future crises and suggests ways forward for higher education institutions in the post-COVID-19 reality.