Introduction

This special issue emerges from The Role of European Universities in an Age of Pandemic , an exploratory project in which research teams from eight countries (Denmark, England, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, and Portugal) examined the multiple effects of the COVID-19 crisis on higher education. Drawing on documents, surveys, national statistics and 130 interviews with policy-makers, institutional leaders, academics, support staff and students, the project sought to capture both immediate responses to the pandemic and their longer-term implications for the future of European universities. Our exploratory study pursued two central objectives: first, to analyse the impact of the pandemic at both system and institutional levels; and second, to understand how different stakeholders’ perceptions and reactions during the crisis – across education, research and societal engagement – shaped emerging visions of the future. In doing so, we aimed not only to trace the immediate consequences of the pandemic but also to situate them within pre-existing structural conditions that already shaped European higher education.