The COVID-19 pandemic has led to an unprecedented health and socio-economic crisis which will mark our times for long. It has thus also severely impacted the entire higher education sector around the world. In order to deliver an overview of the state of play worldwide, IAU launched a Global Survey on the impact of COVID-19 in March 2020.

The IAU Global Survey on the Impact of COVID-19 on Higher Education around the World was conducted online from 25 March to 17 April 2020. It received 576 replies from 424 universities and other Higher Education Institutions based in 111 countries and territories, especially thanks to Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie (AUF), Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU), European University Association (EUA), Consejo Interuniversitario Nacional (CIN) in Argentina and the Hungarian Rectors Conference and Higher School of Economics in Moscow, which provided much appreciated assistance by promoting the questionnaire among their Members.

Results of the survey were analysed both at the global level and at the regional level in four regions of the world (the Americas, Asia Pacific and Europe).