The year 2020 will be remembered as the year of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) crisis; a crisis that exerted an impact on all social institutions, including educational institutions. In relation to higher education, it will be remembered both for the dramatic changes to the ways that teaching and learning occurred and the devastating impact the pandemic restrictions have had on research in universities. This special issue of the Qualitative Research Journal is focussed on the impact of the pandemic on universities and especially on research in universities. For example, in the US, 180 members of congress have supported a call for US$26bn support for research. In the submission to the House of Representatives it is stated that,While COVID-19 related research is now in overdrive, most other research has been slowed down or stopped due to pandemic-induced closures of campuses and laboratories. We are deeply concerned that the people who comprise the research workforce - graduate students, postdocs, principal investigators and technical support staff - are at risk. (O'Malley, 2020a) We can lament the devastation and hanker after the "good old days" or we can see these disruptions as the start of a new and exciting era with opportunities for change and innovation that previously would not have been considered. Watershed events like the COVID-19 crisis change the course of history and pull it off course into new directions which have both negative and positive outcomes. Until such a circuit breaker occurs and society is forced to undergo massive upheaval and change, we can bask in a comfortable situational familiarity that potentially stifles creativity and radical new ways of thinking and acting.
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