An Age of Disruption for European HE

This chapter introduces the age of disruption by characterising the nature and course of Brexit and the COVID–19 pandemic between the years of 2016 and 2021. Beginning with the Brexit disruption, the chapter presents key background information on how the referendum came about, retraces the campaign period and voting patterns, and summarises the Brexit policy process including the negotiation and transition periods. The chapter also reviews the very limited literature on the (potential) consequences of Brexit on the HE sector. The COVID–19 section of this chapter similarly includes an overview of key events and different phases of the health crisis, an account of COVID–19-related repercussions for HE more broadly, as well as a review of the HE internationalisation literature on the pandemic. The acute lack of systematic comparative analyses on the impact of COVID–19 on HE internationalisation is highlighted, and the contributions of the given study are described.