COVID-19 Crisis Response of Higher Education Institutions: Tampere University (TAU) and University of São Paulo (USP)

The existing literature on HEIs’ responses to COVID-19 is fairly generic and does not provide a more in-depth analysis of their responses. This chapter aims to fill this gap by examining the initial response to COVID-19 by two case universities - Tampere University in Finland and the University of São Paulo in Brazil. The authors focus on the timeframe from January 2020 to May 2020. Brazil is one of the largest Latin American countries, and Finland is a small country in a group of Nordic countries. They have different cultures, histories and socioeconomic conditions. Despite these differences, HEIs in both Finland and Brazil played an important role in the continuity and sustainability of their societies during the pandemic. This chapter analyzes how the two institutions responded to the COVID-19 crisis and considers differences in institutional approaches.