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Journal article
The impacts of the COVID‑19 lockdowns on the work of academic staff at higher education institutions: an international assessment
Environment, Development and Sustainability, Vol.27, pp.13973-13999
2025
Appears in COVID-19 Research
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic severely disrupted the life of millions of people around the world and brought changes in many contexts. In higher education institutions, teaching staff had to quickly adapt their teaching and research practices and revisit learning and student engagement strategies. In this context, this paper aimed to report on how the lock-downs influenced the work and lives of academic staff at universities. The methodology consisted of an online survey that collected 201 responses across 39 countries worldwide, and the results were explored using descriptive and exploratory modelling analyses. The findings reveal that the main positive aspect of the work-from-home experience during the lockdowns was the reduction of time spent on commuting, while the inability to disconnect and difficulties in work–life balance were the most commonly indicated negative aspects. The principal component analysis indicated that the pandemic had a moderate power in boosting academic staff towards sustainability, and an important potential of revising academic curricula and teaching–learning relationships. Based on the evidence gathered, recommendations to allow academic staff to better cope with the influence of future pandemics include the increased use of digital resources and new teaching styles, curricula revision for encouraging educators to include more issues related to sustainable development in their teaching and greater institutional support to reduce stressful conditions and improve productivity.
Details
- Title
- The impacts of the COVID‑19 lockdowns on the work of academic staff at higher education institutions: an international assessment
- Authors
- Walter Leal Filho (Author) - HAW HamburgTony Wall (Author) - Liverpool John Moores UniversityAmanda Lange Salvia (Corresponding Author) - HAW HamburgClaudio Ruy Vasconcelos (Author) - Universidade Federal da ParaíbaIsmaila Rimi Abubakar (Author) - Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal UniversityAprajita Minhas (Author) - HAW HamburgMark Mifsud (Author) - University of MaltaValerija Kozlova (Author) - EKA University of Applied SciencesVioleta Orlovic Lovren (Author) - University of BelgradeHossein Azadi (Author) - University of LiègeMarina Kovaleva (Author) - HAW HamburgTodd Jared LeVasseur (Author) - College of CharlestonJohannes Michael Luetz (Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Law and SocietyLuis Velazquez (Author) - Universidad de SonoraPriyatma Singh (Author) - University of FijiRudi Pretorius (Author) - University of South AfricaNoor Adelyna Mohammed Akib (Author) - Universiti Sains MalaysiaTamara Savelyeva (Author) - Hong Kong Institute of Education for Sustainable DevelopmentLuciana Brandli (Author) - Universidade de Passo FundoNandhivarman Muthu (Author) - Pondicherry UniversityPatrizia Lombardi (Author) - Polytechnic University of Turin
- Publication details
- Environment, Development and Sustainability, Vol.27, pp.13973-13999
- Publisher
- Springer Dordrecht
- Date published
- 2025
- DOI
- 10.1007/s10668-024-04484-x
- ISSN
- 1573-2975; 1387-585X
- Copyright note
- This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
- Data Availability
- The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
- Organisation Unit
- School of Law and Society
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 99998098902621
- Output Type
- Journal article
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