The COVID-19 Pandemic as an Opportunity to Foster the Sustainable Development of Teaching in Higher Education

: The COVID-19 pandemic has had profound consequences on the social, economic and cultural life at the global level. The educational dimension has also been a ﬀ ected in the schools’ regular functioning, with the temporary closure of educational institutions, as well as the impediment of face-to-face classes. This perspective paper aims to add to the knowledge already produced on this topic, by arguing that these challenging conditions can be a pivotal moment of opportunity for reshaping higher education, with the implementation, development and di ﬀ usion, among academics and students, of digital technologies. The paper also discusses the role of leadership in the transformation of organizational culture in higher education. The methodology used to carry out this study is qualitative, and the technique employed to analyze the data collected was content analysis. Research studies, in diverse formats, already published on the COVID-19 topic and its impacts were the elected data sources. The results of this document analysis allow us to conclude that there is the need to improve the digital sustainable development in teaching in higher education, which entails profound challenges that higher education institutions need to face and overcome if they want to be at the forefront of success in the international education market. This is where the authors seek to contribute, by o ﬀ ering insights on the challenges—but also the opportunities—that COVID-19 poses to higher education at a time when it needs to redeﬁne its teaching methods, leadership models, and interaction channels, by going digital towards the improvement of the sustainable development of its teaching.


Introduction
The pandemic caused by COVID-19 (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2, SARS-CoV-2) is a worldwide concern and a topic that is frequently present in the current research agendas of laboratories, higher education institutions (HEIs) and similar Research and Development institutions.
While this pandemic is having profound implications at the global level, its repercussions and future consequences are yet to be foreseen with some degree of anticipation and assurance. In this regular functioning, namely with the temporary closure of educational institutions and impracticality of face-to-face classes. This perspective paper argues that these conditions may be a pivotal moment of opportunity for the reformulation of teaching higher education, notably with the implementation, development and dissemination, among academics and students, of digital technologies. The authors also address and discuss the role of leadership in the transformation of organizational culture in higher education. Thus, the paper may be of special interest for the contributions it can provide to the stakeholders involved in higher education, as well as provide insights for the managerial and policy decision-making processes.

Materials and Methods
This article aims to understand and make known the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic specifically in higher education. Documentary collection and analysis was the technique mobilized in this research, using different types of documentary sources as a basis for its potential in providing elucidative information on a given topic [9,10].
The types of documentary sources mobilized in this research include articles, books and book chapters produced by various scientists in the field of social sciences and that are considered to be important in the understanding of COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity to foster sustainable development in higher education. The bibliographic search was carried out through the B-ON and SCILIT databases, from 15 to 20 September 2020, through the search for articles that had the following expressions in the title and/or abstract: "COVID-19", "higher education", "leadership" and "sustainability". B-ON (Biblioteca do Conhecimento Online) "provides unlimited and permanent access to research and HEIs to the full texts of thousands of scientific journals and online eBooks from some of the most important content providers" [11]. The SCILIT database, which consists of a "free database for scientists using a new method to collate data and indexing scientific material" and that "extract[s] the latest data from CrossRef and PubMed on a daily basis" [12], was used because the authors deemed it pertinent to select and verify all articles with DOI (Digital Object Identifier) on these topics. Table 1 presents the statistical characteristics of the documents collected and analyzed. The authors of the articles are from five continents and 26 countries: Albania (1); Australia (1); Austria (2); Brazil (4); China (3); Czech Republic (1); Ethiopia (1); Finland (1); Germany (1); Indonesia (2); Italy (1); Kenya (1); Malaysia (2); Mexico (1); New Zealand (1); Poland (1); Portugal (3); Romania (2); Russia (1); Slovenia (1); Spain (2) The Netherlands (1); Turkey (5); UK (2); Ukraine (1); and USA (3).
From the documents obtained through this search, starting with the most recent, the authors selected the relevant ones through several cumulative stages. This selection made it possible to reduce the number of articles analyzed in each stage until concluding in stage 3: (1) reading of the title; (2) reading of the abstract; and (3) reading of the full document to fulfil the goal of analyzing the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on the higher education arena.

Higher Education Culture
HEIs are extremely complex organizations because they deal with individuals and aim at their education/training [8,[13][14][15][16]. Caliskan and Zhu [17] (p. 273) maintain that "Universities are people-oriented organizations in which the internal (academic staff, students) and external (local community, political activists, quality assurance agencies, press) stakeholders are involved". Figure 1 depicts this complexity in any HEI's strategy, characterized by diverse components.

Higher Education Culture
HEIs are extremely complex organizations because they deal with individuals and aim at their education/training [8,[13][14][15][16]. Caliskan and Zhu [17] (p. 273) maintain that "Universities are peopleoriented organizations in which the internal (academic staff, students) and external (local community, political activists, quality assurance agencies, press) stakeholders are involved". Figure  1 depicts this complexity in any HEI's strategy, characterized by diverse components. The literature shows that organizational culture, which is unique in any organization, influences the way its employees respond to change and resist it. Organizational leaders have, in these situations, the role of both embracing the change and finding strategies to help their teams overcome possible foci of resistance. This culture, composed of rules, beliefs and values explicitly written or otherwise, "brings together individuals of differing opinions, beliefs, and values around a shared goal and thus helps the organization attain its goals" [19] (p. 46).
In this framework, organizational culture can work either as an enabler or an obstacle for educational innovations at the macro, meso and micro levels [17,[20][21][22]. Warter [15] provides a good summary of the complexity of HEIs' culture, features, decision-making processes, and internal and external influences: Universities are complicated social organizations with characteristic cultures. On the one hand, academic freedom, critical thinking, and autonomy are protected values and, on the other hand, changing environmental conditions exert powerful impact on the primary functions of universities […]. Unlike many other organizations, universities have certain particularities that need to be clearly understood and that dominate the organizational culture of academic institutions. In the first place, their goals are equivocal. Different objectives, procedures, and standards in teaching, research, and other processes as well as lack of agreement on rules for goal accomplishment result in a doubtful decision-making process […]. The decision-making processes in universities are often complicated and long due to different points of view and interests of academic staff. This causes conflicts between managers concentrating on processes and faculty staff focused on less important issues [15] (pp. 173-175). The literature shows that organizational culture, which is unique in any organization, influences the way its employees respond to change and resist it. Organizational leaders have, in these situations, the role of both embracing the change and finding strategies to help their teams overcome possible foci of resistance. This culture, composed of rules, beliefs and values explicitly written or otherwise, "brings together individuals of differing opinions, beliefs, and values around a shared goal and thus helps the organization attain its goals" [19] (p. 46).
In this framework, organizational culture can work either as an enabler or an obstacle for educational innovations at the macro, meso and micro levels [17,[20][21][22]. Warter [15] provides a good summary of the complexity of HEIs' culture, features, decision-making processes, and internal and external influences: Universities are complicated social organizations with characteristic cultures. On the one hand, academic freedom, critical thinking, and autonomy are protected values and, on the other hand, changing environmental conditions exert powerful impact on the primary functions of universities [ . . . ]. Unlike many other organizations, universities have certain particularities that need to be clearly understood and that dominate the organizational culture of academic institutions. In the first place, their goals are equivocal. Different objectives, procedures, and standards in teaching, research, and other processes as well as lack of agreement on rules for goal accomplishment result in a doubtful decision-making process [ . . . ]. The decision-making processes in universities are often complicated and long due to different points of view and interests of academic staff. This causes conflicts between managers concentrating on processes and faculty staff focused on less important issues [15] (pp. 173-175).
A good example of the characterization of HEIs in terms of their organization is the classic study by Cameron [23], commented on by Bonisenha and D'Angelo [24]. The authors sustain that there are four types of HEIs: 1.
The first group is effective in the academic and moral domain, but ineffective in the adaptation to the external environment and internal interaction; 2.
The second group is effective in the external domain, but ineffective at all other levels; 3.
The third group is low in quality and its effectiveness at all levels is below average; 4.
Finally, the fourth group has average effectiveness in the moral domain, is effective in the academic domain and ineffective in terms of the external adaptation and external interaction. Table 2 provides an overview of the four domains of organizational effectiveness in HEIs, as well as the areas each one of them favors and fosters.

Academic domain
Favors students' academic development, professional satisfaction of the teaching and non-teaching staff, as well as the ability to secure resources.

Moral domain
Favors the student's educational satisfaction, the professional satisfaction of the teaching and non-teaching staff and the robustness of the internal institutional processes.
Adaptation and external interaction domain Favors students' career development.

Extracurricular activities domain
Favors students' personal development.
HEIs' leaders have to carefully consider the organizational culture of HEI they manage, otherwise, the intended organizational change may fail [16,18,22]. This assertion is emphasized by Berisha et al. [18] (p. 37) when the authors argue that "[ . . . ] organizational culture plays an important role on strategy as practice; top management is perceived to primarily provide sense through face-to-face interaction and procedural measures of strategy practices; staff members are mostly involved in implementation".
When addressing the complexity of higher education organizations, it seems to us unavoidable-given its heuristic potential-to focus on the already classic proposal by Leydesdorff and Etzkowitz [25] of a Triple Helix Model that emphasizes the close relationship between the Triple Helix of University-Industry-Government Relationships that undergoes changes in time, both in the type of interactions and even in the features of each of these three helices. Furthering the analysis, this framework puts forth that "Innovation is initially the result of a local interaction between scientific invention, economic diffusion, and political power" [25] (p. 202). According to the authors, this model has the main purpose of "analyzing innovation in a knowledge-based economy. This model accounts for the phenomenon of emergence, that is, it helps us to understand how the innovation system is based on expectations" [25] (p. 198). Moreover, Lawton Smith and Leydesdorff [26] (p. 3) envision the model's "three functional dynamics -wealth generation, governance, and novelty production-as further heuristics in the application of a Triple Helix model in theory and in practice" (for further development of this proposal, with the increase in additional helices, which fall outside the scope of this paper, see [25,26]).

Digital Sustainable Development in Higher Education
Higher education is paramount in the promotion of sustainability at the environmental, economic and social levels [27][28][29]. Building on Kuzma, Doliveira, and Silva [30], Table 3 depicts the main competences for sustainability, as well as the definition and characteristics of each one of them. Table 3. Competences for sustainability and characteristics.

Competence for Sustainability Definition/Characteristics
Focus on systemic thinking Ability to collectively analyze complex systems in different domains (society, environment, economy, etc.) and at different scales (from local to global), thus considering feedback and other resources related to sustainability issues and sustainable problem-solving frameworks. The ability to analyze complex systems includes understanding and verifying empirically, articulating their structure, main components and dynamics. The ability to analyze is based on the attained systemic knowledge, including concepts such as structure, function, cause and effect relationships but also perceptions, decisions and regulations.

Preventive
Ability to collectively analyze and assess the future setting related to sustainability issues and scenarios for solving sustainability problems. The ability to analyze future scenarios includes being able to understand and articulate their structure; the ability to assess regards comparative skills that relate to the "state of the art"; finally, the ability to create integrates creative and constructive skills.

Normative
Ability to specify, implement, reconcile and negotiate sustainability values, principles, objectives and goals. This ability allows us, first, to collectively assess the sustainability of current and/or future states of organizational systems and then to collectively create the visions of sustainability for those systems. It is based on attained normative knowledge, including concepts of justice, equity, socio-ecological integrity and ethics. These skills are adapted to address key-issues of socio-ecological sustainability, including integrity, logical systems and organizational equity.

Strategic
Ability to implement interventions, transitions and strategies of transformational governance towards sustainability. This ability requires a deep understanding of strategic concepts, such as intentionality, systemic inertia, path dependencies, barriers, carriers, alliances, etc.; knowledge of feasibility, effectiveness, efficiency of systemic interventions, as well as the potential for unintended consequences, etc.

Interpersonal
Ability to motivate, enable and facilitate collaboration and research on participatory sustainability and problem-solving. It includes advanced skills in communication, decision-making and negotiation, collaboration, leadership, pluralist and cultural thinking, and empathy. The ability to understand, accept and foster diversity across cultures, social groups, communities and individuals is acknowledged as a key-component of that competence.
Source: Kuzma et al. [30] (p. 435). Table 4 provides guidelines regarding the ways in which HEIs may change to meet the demands of sustainable development. Decision-making processes, leadership strategies, and strategic planning dynamics.
Role of internal factors (e.g., institutional culture, strategic agency, relationships and power on campus).
Role of external factors (e.g., funding/regulative bodies, networks, other higher education institutions).
Focus on organizational learning, to explicitly investigate the process of change.
Conclusions of the study by Bohunovsky et al. [27] on pushing organizational transformation towards sustainability across 13 Universities in Austria are enriching for other HEIs, respecting the internal and external characteristics of each one. First and foremost, and prior to any changing process in HEIs towards sustainable development, it is important to bear in mind that organizational change processes towards sustainable development in these institutions are complex and experience numerous parallel developments, and have a wide range of institutional actors involved in this process, who may react differently to change. Furthermore, HEIs are influenced differently by internal and external factors. The main drivers of organizational transformation towards sustainable development in HEIs can be, for example, individual institutional actors, HEIs' management and rectorate organs and inter-HEI networks through inter-influence, enabling this transformation by creating conditions and opportunities and/or leading this organizational transformation [27].
This process of promoting sustainable development, in which higher education can potentially play a critical role [31], takes place in a context increasingly shaped by a growing presence of technology based on digitalization [32][33][34][35]. In particular, the Internet is at the core of this digitalization of daily life and is, according to Gomez Zermeño [36] (p. 1) "[ . . . ] the struggle for permanent connectivity, for being present in the world, for apprehending what happens in reality and building reality becoming the vehicle that stores key information for social life, builds environments and, links objects and people". Some authors even make reference to a digital society, notably in "Society 5.0"-a super-smart society-and sustain that "Society 5.0 is the consequence of a technological revolution that will eventually affect not just the production but all parts of today's life as well" [37] (p. 1085). Table 5 exhibits these forms of digitalization and their main features.

IoT
IoT has been developing rapidly in recent years, with billions of connected devices. IoT is becoming a global infrastructure, enabling advanced services through the interconnection of things that belong to both the physical and virtual worlds.

Blockchain
Blockchain was developed to support the bitcoin currency, and has the characteristics of decentralization, persistence, anonymity, and auditability.

Virtual Reality/ Augmented Reality/ Mixed Reality
The demand for all types of interactive experiences, whether from scientists, business people, government decision makers, or ordinary citizens, will continue to grow.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) A broad term that includes deep learning, knowledge graphs, and brain-inspired computing, is one of the most prominent technologies currently being advanced.

Hyper-Connectivity
The volume of available data is now growing at an unprecedented pace.

5G, Fog/Edge Computing
Many connected devices (including those using AI) require the transmission of huge amounts of data to the cloud for storage and processing. The advent of the 5G (the fifth generation of mobile wireless technologies) network will dramatically increase this demand and, in particular, demand for real-time processing services.

Progress in Computing and Microelectronics
Big Data analytics and AI require new types of computing to address emerging needs to support parallel and tensor processing, overcome the traditional computer architecture latency problem, embed machine learning, deploy processor-in-memory, 4D virtual reality and augmented reality, to visualize and, notably, to consume less energy.

In-memory Computing
In-memory computing stores data in RAM rather than in databases hosted on disks. This eliminates the I/O latency and the need to implement database transactions reliability and consistently.
For the digital transformation in the educational arena to be successful, namely in terms of implementation and adaptation to new technologies, it must be based on sustainable management. HEIs are increasingly aware that digitization is inevitable to attract more and better students and improve the quality of the study programs they offer, as well as teaching materials and methods, i.e., digitization integrates the entire educational process.
Digital technologies in education allow the transition from learning as an individualized and passive process to learning as a co-creation of knowledge involving several institutional actors, namely the student, his peers and the teaching staff, in a logic of communities of practice. These profound changes are caused using digital demand, different and new skills, which are critical for students or future professionals, to move and succeed in the digital economy of the 21st century [36].

The Role of Leadership in Higher Education Sustainability
Putri, Mirzania, and Hartanto [38] draw attention to the role and responsibility of the leaders in fostering sustainability in the institutions they manage. Leaders are accountable for steering and managing the organization's members towards the attainment of the institutional targets, whichever leadership methods and styles they use to do so. Moreover, "Cultural diversity within an organization will certainly enrich the organization's perspective to establish the right organizational culture. This is the responsibility of a leader in determining the shared culture that will be believed and applied by each member of the organization" [38] (p. 51).
Specifically in the management of HEIs, in their study on "distributed leadership"-as an alternative to more traditional forms of leadership-Gosling, Bolden, and Petrov [39] conclude that there are numerous institutional actors involved in leadership and organizational processes that are central in shaping their engagement to leadership and the HEI. However, there are tensions between individual autonomy and organizational coherence, which are embodied in tensions between professional, academic and managerial identities. This often causes a big contrast between how institutional actors describe their perceptions of sound leadership and how they experience it. Gosling et al. [39] offer a systematization of the diverse accounts on leadership based on their study and presented in Table 6.
In turn, Leal Filho et al. [40] (p. 1) define sustainability leadership as the "processes, which leaders, policymakers, and academics undertake in order to implement sustainable development policies and other initiatives within their organizations". The role of HEIs, particularly that of their leaders, is pivotal in the promotion of sustainable development.
The authors claim that management and leadership in organizations, and HEIs in particular, are distinct but complementary systems. Table 7 presents Leal Filho et al.'s [40] perspective on the differences between leadership and management. The authors choose the following variables to distinguish leadership from management: (i) agenda and goal setting; (ii) way of thinking; (iii) employee relations; (iv) mode of execution and operation; (v) governance; and (vi) outcomes. Formation of a "silo mentality" within schools, with holders of devolved budgets pursuing their own objectives, not aligned with (or even counter to) the overall university mission and objectives.

Disengaged
Staff avoid becoming involved in leadership and management of the institution; leadership is seen as unappealing, unrewarding or unnecessary.
Leadership viewed as administration/bureaucracy rather than strategic and inter-personal-e.g., leadership and management of school/university versus academic leadership of research or discipline.

Dissipated
Leadership is too broadly diffused across groups with little accountability or responsibility for implementing decisions and actions.
This was a frequent criticism of the committee structure, described as a "washing machine" where decisions go round and round remaining unresolved and disowned.

Distant
Leadership is felt to be removed from the operational level of the organization; inaccessible, imposed; not necessarily 'in our best interests'.
Decisions taken at senior management level and imposed with limited consultation. This situation seems to be amplified where senior managers are physically distant from academic departments.

Dysfunctional
Leadership fails to achieve its intentions; results in unexpected/undesirable outcomes; misalignment of performance measures.
Negative reaction to performance review and appraisal process by senior academic staff; performance measures driving individual rather than team behavior; risk aversion and dysfunctional systems arising from failures of senior leadership.
Source: Gosling et al. [39]. In their study, Leal Filho et al. [40] surveyed a sample of leaders and top-management actors from a set of universities from around the world. Table 8 depicts the actions indicated by the respondents to overcome sustainability leadership challenges in their institutions. In the face of these results, Leal Filho et al. [40] (p. 12) offer the following set of measures that HEIs may adopt to improve their performance: Measure 1-a greater focus on practical aspects of governance, better integrating governance issues into university life. Measure 2-institutionalizing the incorporation of SD issues at universities, by means of a stronger embedment of concrete activities, such as the elaboration of sustainability action plans and strategies or work programs, via which senior management can be better related to academic and non-academic staff, all to the advantage of institutional practices. Measure 3-a greater focus on the contributions from leadership towards the attainment of the SDG targets. Here, the current levels of emphasis on the SDGs could be measured, a set of SDGs-related goals could be set, and progress toward their achievements could be assessed. The fact that senior staff act as drivers and/or moderators means that the visibility of such action will be assured. Measure 4-identify the means via which leadership may engage in fostering the capability of staff at their organizations to promote sustainable development. There is a paucity of leadership-led training initiatives aimed at raising awareness among academic and non-academic staff, so such an initiative may help to move this important area forward.
The authors advocate that well-implemented sustainability leadership fosters the institution's relationship with sustainable development. However, this might not be attained unless the institution takes on a culture of institutional change, which enables the institution's search for the best ways to address and respond to local, regional, and global challenges [40].

The COVID-19 Pandemic and the Role of Higher Education Institutions in the Promotion of Online Learning
The most recent literature on the topics of COVID-19 and the consequences of the pandemic in educational processes is unanimous in advocating that HEIs have a leading role in the promotion of distance learning via the use of digital tools. While this turbulent context poses many hindrances and challenges to the learning and teaching process, it should also be viewed as an opportunity for change. More than ever before, the traditional learning and teaching methods are changing to accommodate the new educational needs. Albeit institutional actors did not have much time to prepare for this change and many are struggling to keep pace, the shift to e-learning or b-learning is inescapable. Cheema [2] proposes a set of strategies that may help to improve this new way of learning and teaching (Table 9). Table 9. Instructional strategies to improve online learning.

Strategies Description
1. Be prepared (preparedness planning and contingency planning

•
Prepare content before class and inform students in advance. Preferable time for each online session is about 30 ± 10 min.

•
Check capability of institution online education platform to host large scale users.

•
Check educators' and students' bandwidth to do a live synchronous online session. If bandwidth is low, do asynchronous online learning.

•
Have information technology/support team on standby in case of technical glitches.

•
Provide pre-class reading materials to students to ensure engagement and in-depth discussion.

•
Gauge online learning behavior characteristics of students.
2. "Bite-sized" information is gold (dividing teaching content into smaller units) • This is to increase student attentiveness and concentration during online learning.

•
Breakdown the content of the in-class teaching into different topics and adopt a modular teaching method. Ideally each online session address one learning outcome. If learning outcomes are huge, break it into smaller chunks.

•
Interlay quizzes, discussion, games with the module if possible.
3. Personalize/Humanize (use of "voice" in teaching) • Body language and facial expressions are restricted in online learning. Create "teaching assistant" between educators. Make them aware of the objectives, knowledge framework, and teaching activities of each session.

Empowerment (strengthening students'
active learning ability outside of class) • Educator has less control over student engagement and participation during online learning and are more likely to skip classes.

•
Educator should use various methods to modify students' homework, activities and reading requirements to strengthen students' active learning outside of class.
6. Flexibility (combining online learning and offline self-learning effectively) • Integrate both online learning and offline self-learning.

•
In the offline self-learning phase, students are given course-specific reading materials both before and after class with activities or assignments.

•
In the online teaching phase, educator should encourage discussions, group activities for students to exchange their understanding based on their reading. Thus, students will not learn ambiguous, fragmented, and surface knowledge. Instead, they will experience deep learning during the discussion.

•
Encourage global, community and collaborative learning.
7. Reflection (gauge students' understanding, learning outcome attainment and improvement for next session) • Educator should provide feedback to students' assignments and know the learning cognitive levels of students. Academics and students are, thus, facing a new way of interacting with each other. Like all forms of interaction, the online teaching and learning process has its advantages but also some drawbacks. Above all, it is a challenge for all involved. Traditional strategies no longer work in this new setting, and HEIs, academics and students have to adapt to change, so as to move forward to a distance educational process that is the "new normality" [3].
Overall educational institutions, and in particular HEIs need to reinvent themselves and reshape the learning and teaching process. This complex, yet urgent need encompasses, according to Darling-Hammond, Schachner, and Edgerton [41], 10 key areas that HEIs have to address so as to achieve transformational, equity-oriented and quality learning (Figure 2). Sustainability 2020, 12, x FOR PEER REVIEW  13 of 16 and HEIs, academics and students have to adapt to change, so as to move forward to a distance educational process that is the "new normality" [3].
Overall educational institutions, and in particular HEIs need to reinvent themselves and reshape the learning and teaching process. This complex, yet urgent need encompasses, according to Darling-Hammond, Schachner, and Edgerton [41], 10 key areas that HEIs have to address so as to achieve transformational, equity-oriented and quality learning (Figure 2). With the shutting of HEIs' campuses at a global scale and the shift of all learning, teaching, and assessment from traditional face-to-face delivery modes to online learning and teaching, HEIs, as fundamental education providers, have faced and are still facing the great challenge of adapting and reshaping their educational strategies, techniques and tools. For many of them, this may be the ultimate test on their ability to survive and strive amidst these turbulent times.

Conclusions
This piece of research sought to analyze the most recent scientific publications and provide insights on the COVID-19 pandemic envisaged as an opportunity to improve sustainable development in higher education, so to attain its central goal, which is to understand and make known the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic specifically in higher education. The literature on this topic widely acknowledges that higher education needs, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, to reinvent itself. It is about improving sustainable digital development in higher education with profound challenges to be faced and overcome by those HEIs that want to put themselves at the forefront of success in the international educational market.
As an implication, it may be ascertained that, as a transformative process, the COVID-19 pandemic may have created the conditions to ease adherence to new processes that foster sustainable development in higher education, in its individual actors (such as students, academics and higher education managers) and collective actors, as well as stakeholders (either government entities or private financiers). In this respect, Leydesdorff and Etzkowitz [42] (p. 285) advocate that "the knowledge-based economic regime has made the distinction between laissez faire and active-state With the shutting of HEIs' campuses at a global scale and the shift of all learning, teaching, and assessment from traditional face-to-face delivery modes to online learning and teaching, HEIs, as fundamental education providers, have faced and are still facing the great challenge of adapting and reshaping their educational strategies, techniques and tools. For many of them, this may be the ultimate test on their ability to survive and strive amidst these turbulent times.

Conclusions
This piece of research sought to analyze the most recent scientific publications and provide insights on the COVID-19 pandemic envisaged as an opportunity to improve sustainable development in higher education, so to attain its central goal, which is to understand and make known the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic specifically in higher education. The literature on this topic widely acknowledges that higher education needs, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, to reinvent itself. It is about improving sustainable digital development in higher education with profound challenges to be faced and overcome by those HEIs that want to put themselves at the forefront of success in the international educational market.
As an implication, it may be ascertained that, as a transformative process, the COVID-19 pandemic may have created the conditions to ease adherence to new processes that foster sustainable development in higher education, in its individual actors (such as students, academics and higher education managers) and collective actors, as well as stakeholders (either government entities or private financiers). In this respect, Leydesdorff and Etzkowitz [42] (p. 285) advocate that "the knowledge-based economic regime has made the distinction between laissez faire and active-state intervention obsolete: governance nowadays means codifying high-quality selections that set free new areas of activity as zones of recombination".
However, this process, while requiring a predisposition of the actors involved to be successful, will take place within a framework defined by the leadership, by the top of the pyramid, both in HEIs and in governments, which it directly refers to in terms of law compliance. Such a framework that potentiates this change, in its entirety and without being naïve or concealing the difficulties inherent in a shift in individual, collective and organizational cultural, may be created, which encompasses the various dimensions of the HEIs' action: teaching, research, and service to the community, adding to the progress of society [43][44][45][46]. However, teaching will, predictably, be one of the primary functions that define higher education, with the application of the digital to foster sustainable digital development in this educational level through collective learning, considering different national and international contexts [47].
In the current challenging scenario caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the answer to the issue of determining the fundamental role of education may be that the whole educational system, and specifically the higher education one, needs to engage in and commit to a transformational process. Education has to question its own role in these troubled times, notably in promoting a fair, equitable and sustainable society for all. It is the role of education to permanently question the whole notion of sustainable development as the right path to follow, instilling in its students the will to "create new visions and paradigms to make this world a better place" [48] (p. 4). Surely there is no "one-size-fits-all" solution, but aspects such as training, internet access infrastructures, hardware and software, digital literacy, and teaching and learning strategies for students and academics will be critical in this transformation.
This perspective paper seeks to add to the analysis of the COVID-19 pandemic, envisaging it as an opportunity to foster the sustainable development of teaching in higher education. Thus, it intends to offer insights to be developed and furthered in future scientific works with distinct scopes (research paper, review, essay, etc.), aiming to understand this potential phenomenon, while concurrently providing contributions for policy implications, so that this process may be achieved effectively and efficiently. The authors allow themselves to conclude this perspective paper with Seneca's immortal words: "If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable".