Areas and dimensions of universities response to COVID-19: Diversity, trends, and evidence from the University Social Responsibility Network

The University Social Responsibility Network (USRN) promotes civic engagement in higher education and awareness of the nature of University Social Responsibility (USR), how it functions, and what it means depending on its context. In 2019 the USRN started a collaborative Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) called Introduction to University Social Responsibility. The outbreak of COVID-19 affected the production of the course, however this also led to the addition of a Special Session on Universities’ Response to the MOOC showing how members addressed the challenges of the pandemic. Based on the experiences from 13 universities and the USRN, this article portrays flagship responses of how universities in the network tackled some of the challenges presented by the pandemic in range of academic and non-academic initiatives categorized as University Social Responsibility (USR) Areas of Engagement, namely research, education, advisory role, outreach, information management, provision of support, institutional reforms, and extended services. The article discusses broader questions referring to how COVID-19 impacted the understanding of what USR is; therefore, looking into both policy and theoretical implications of how the concept of USR and universities responses can be understood and applied in different contexts and universities. Received: 31 January 2022Accepted: 30 August 2023