The Impact of Covid-19 on the Field of Education and Science
Rashid Dallaev
1a
, Ştefan Ţălu
2b
, Daniel Burda
1c
, Dinara Sobola
1,3 d
, Jiří Majzner
3e
,
Vladimír Holcman
1f
and Anton Nazarov
4
1
Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Communication, Physics Department, Brno University of Technology,
Technická 8, 616 00 Brno, Czech Republic
2
The Directorate of Research, Development and Innovation Management (DMCDI), The Technical University
of Cluj-Napoca, Constantin Daicoviciu Street, no. 15, Cluj-Napoca, 400020, Cluj County, Romania
3
Dagestan State University, Makhachkala, St. M. Gadjieva 43-a, Dagestan Republic, 367000, Russia
4
Institute of management and information technologies, Ural State University of Economics, Russian Federation
Keywords: Higher Education, Educational Course, Research Work.
Abstract:
The spread of the coronavirus infection COVID-19 has affected all sectors of the economy. The pandemic
has had a tangible impact on the sphere of higher education, including graduate school. A radical restructuring
of the educational process of universities: lectures and practical classes, laboratory work through distance
technologies were transferred to the online environment. At this stage, the leading role is assigned to the most
diverse aspects of natural science research, which are a catalyst for such disciplines as: mathematics, physics,
biology, chemistry, as well as nanotechnology - the exponentially growing powers of these processes occupy
dominant positions.
1 INTRODUCTION
Quoting Dr. Jeremy Farrar, Director of the
‘Wellcome’ fund and Chairman of the WHO
Research and Development Program Advisory Group
- “There is only one way to end the global pandemic
which is through science.” (https://www.who.i
nt/ru/coronavirus-2019, 2019).
40 councils and associations participate in the
research on COVID-19, including research councils
and academies of the Russian Academy of Sciences,
the International Science Council - a non-
governmental structure, etc. In this regard, many
countries have allocated funding which is visually
represented in figure 1. Italy has allocated 140 million
euros; France - 500 million euros; Germany - 525
million euros; Finland - 36 million euros; Belgium -
27 million euros; Spain -125 million euros; the
a
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6823-5725
b
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1311-7657
c
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2282-138X
d
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0008-5265
e
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3971-9939
f
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7402-4660
Visegrad group (Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Czech
Republic) - 3 million Euro; Great Britain - more than
780 million euros; Norway - more than 850 euros;
Canada - 720 million euros. EU, - 1 billion euros.
Russia – 35 million euros.
Figure 1: Diagram of various countries financial
contribution (ach.gov.ru/upload/pdf/Covid-19-science.pdf,
2021).
Dallaev, R., ¸T
˘
alu, ¸S., Burda, D., Sobola, D., Majzner, J., Holcman, V. and Nazarov, A.
The Impact of Covid-19 on the Field of Education and Science.
DOI: 10.5220/0011109800003439
In Proceedings of the 2nd International Scientific and Practical Conference "COVID-19: Implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals" (RTCOV 2021), pages 13-17
ISBN: 978-989-758-617-0
Copyright
c
 2023 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved
13

2 HIGHER EDUCATION
CHALLENGES
COVID-19 has put high school teachers in a difficult
environment that has had to accelerate the
transformation of the way their universities operate.
Experimental and scientific laboratories of chemistry,
physics, and others felt a particularly strong influence
of the pandemic:
- programs of student exchanges and attracting
foreign students were suspended, international
scientific conferences were postponed;
- the programs for the training of scientific and
pedagogical personnel were interrupted;
- long-term experiments are thwarted;
- pause or reduction of hours in research work;
- the number of targeted educational programs and
some courses is decreasing;
- weakening of partnerships.
The management of the university, when
organizing the educational process based on various
methods of delivering electronic content, in the
context of the coronavirus, considers a number of
tasks:
- strengthening cooperation of partner universities
to provide methodological support for the use of
digital tools;
- volume of attracted extra-budgetary funds
(external content providers);
- use of crowdfunding platforms;
- market coverage (competitiveness).
During a pandemic, there is a reduction in
academic mobility, a weakening of partnerships
necessary for the development of new master's
programs, new research projects (www.un.org/
ru/120159, 2021).
A serious problem for the leadership of higher
education, in the current situation, is the reduction in
funding, which will negatively affect all aspects of the
university's activities. Visual representation of the
major difficulties caused by Covid-19 is given in
figure 2.
Universities are focused on the most efficient use
of financial resources to maintain their stable work,
realizing that in the near future the number of foreign
students will decrease, funding from the state will
decrease, and it will become impossible to receive
income from other activities of universities: the
income of the population has decreased for accessing
paid educational services, During the crisis, many
non-academic organizations suspended orders for
research and development (www.csee-
etuce.org/ru/novosti/etuce/4401-posledstviya-pande
mii-covid-19-dlya-vysshego-obrazovaniya-v-evrope
jskom-prostranstve-vysshego-obrazovaniya, 2021).
Figure 2: Challenges for Universities in a Pandemic.
(according to a survey by the International Association of
Universities) (ntf.ru/sites/default/files/ Vliyanie% 20pande
mii%20COVID-19%20na%20sektor%20vysshego%20
obrazovaniya%20i%20magistraturu.pdf, 2021).
The distance learning used by universities is not
inferior to the offline format. Many universities, in
case of academic disciplines and specialties that
require a laboratory research workshop, are adopting
a hybrid form of education (Crawford et al., 2020;
Almaiah et al., 2020; Țălu and Nazarov, 2020).
Numerous studies in the field of educational
technologies agree that the basis of online learning is
the educational material which is carefully designed,
planned and supported by a methodologically sound
and purposeful sequence. Such material ensures the
achievement of learning outcomes in the format of
exclusively e-learning (Means et al., 2014).
The provision of educational services through
online learning reflects the cognitive and social
process. Correctly selected course materials will
provide students with an educational result, and a
positive connection for the teacher.
The crisis also revealed positive aspects: intensive
work of universities to form new formats of
interaction with partners, the development of crisis
plans together with partner organizations, an increase
in virtual mobility and the strengthening of the third
role of universities (iau-aiu.net/Covid-19-Higher-
Education-challenges-and-responses, 2021).
In the shortest possible time, universities had to
adapt to new forms of "open science" in all its aspects:
digitalization was accelerated (unified platforms for
collecting observational and experimental data);
internationalization (association of scientists
(crowdfunding)); transition to online cooperation on
current and new projects; allocation of funding
priorities (main scientific areas - mathematics,
RTCOV 2021 - II International Scientific and Practical Conference " COVID-19: Implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals
(RTCOV )
14

chemistry, physics, nanotechnology, IT and Data
Science).
The introduction of quarantine paralyzed work in
laboratories around the world due to the self-isolation
regime. Experiments were suspended in scientific
centers or, if possible, the research of biologists and
chemists was reoriented. Master's programs requiring
laboratory practice, hardware research, production
trials / approbation, consider the activation of virtual
research networks, the redistribution of experimental
work, etc. as solutions.
The programmatic approach to the development
of the master's studies and the introduction of online
technologies turned out to be a timely response to the
challenge. The universities that were preparing this
transition, or acting in this way long before that,
"amortized" the sharp slowdown in most of the life
processes of universities around the world. The
world's leading universities offer ‘micromasters’
programs on the Edx platform https://www.edx.org/
micromasters and on the Coursera platform
https://www.coursera.org/mastertrack.
According to a Key stone academic study,
applicants prefer different social networks for
communication. The preferences of applicants when
it comes to social networks is given in figure 3.
Figure 3: The popularity of various social networks
(ntf.ru/sites/default/files/Vliyanie%20pandemii%20COVI
D-19%20na%20sektor%20vysshego%20 obrazovaniya%2
0i%20magistraturu.pdf, 2021).
Situational complexity in the higher education sector
has developed for the following reasons:
- lack of material and technical base;
- not all universities are provided with sufficient
infrastructure for organizing online learning (Internet
networks);
- reduction of the teaching staff working with
universities on a contract basis;
- not enough experience of some teachers to study
online;
- suspension of research in scientific experimental
laboratories;
- psychological overload of teachers and students;
- low standard of living of the population, etc.
The divergence between universities in the
European zone will increase: countries such as
Germany, Denmark, Switzerland are increasing
funding for universities, whereas the Czech Republic,
Romania, Slovakia and Ireland are decreasing
funding. Due to the lack of public funding, there may
be a tendency to merge universities. Many
international programs aimed at academic exchange
and research have adjusted their activities
(ec.europa.eu/programmes/erasmus-plus/news/coro
navirus-outbreak-deadlines-applications-extended
_en, 2021). The percentage of measures taken by
universities to increase the admission of foreign
applicants is represented in figure 4.
Figure 4: Measures taken by universities to increase the
admission of foreign applicants (ntf.ru/sites/default/files/
Vliyanie%20pandemii%20COVID-19%20na%20sektor
%20vysshego%20obrazovaniya%20i%20magistraturu.pdf,
2021).
Quantification of online formats that are
important for communication with applicants and
their attraction is given in figure 5.
Figure 5: Online formats that are important for commu-
nication with applicants and their attraction (ntf.ru/sites/
default/files/Vliyanie%20pandemii%20COVID-19%20na
%20 sektor%20vysshego%20 obrazovaniya %20i%20
magistraturu.pdf, 2021).
The Impact of Covid-19 on the Field of Education and Science
15

3 THE ROLE OF SCIENCE
Medical research addressing the etiology,
epidemiology, mechanism of pathogenesis, and the
body's immune response to the virus must have a
holistic approach to developing effective treatment
protocols to combat the epidemic (Waris et al., 2020;
Lurie et al., 2020).
A wide range of areas of science and technology,
such as nanotechnology, have great potential in the
prevention, diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19
(Huang et al., 2020). Of course, nanotechnology will
determine the world's approaches and tools for
treatment (Cheng et al., 2009). There are a variety of
tools to create numerous materials for the research,
identification and surveillance of viruses.
On the other hand, the therapeutic
nanotechnology seeks to provide specific factors that
may reduce morbidity and mortality by a minimally
invasive therapy, high density functions, and
concentration in very small volumes.
Nanotechnology makes it possible to address the
fight against COVID-19 through various approaches:
(a) the execution of highly effective personal
protective equipment (PPE) against infections, in
order to increase the safety of healthcare
professionals and the creation of high-performance
products of antiviral disinfectants and surface
coatings, capable of blocking the replication of the
virus and its spread; (b) the execution of nano-
specific sensors with a high sensitivity for the
efficient identification of the infection or the immune
response; (c) the development of new drugs that allow
rapid activity with low toxicity to affected tissues, for
example in the lungs; and (d) the development of a
nano-based vaccination to trigger humoral and
cellular immune responses (Campos et al., 2020). In
addition, the use of nanoparticle markers in various
nanostructures can study the mechanism of infection
of host cells by viruses.
Nanomaterials can be used in combination with
active antiviral substances that allow their interaction
with viruses. If we refer to the antiviral activity of
specific biocompatible nanomaterials (eg silver and
gold nanoparticles), the general antiviral action can
be effectively blocked (Draz and Shafiee, 2018; Lung
et al., 2020; Shin et al., 2020; Singh et al., 2021).
Nanoparticles can be adapted by specific
geometry and controlled properties (such as surface
functionalization with various ligands) to make them
adaptable vehicles for vaccines (Chauhan et al.,
2020).
The applied application of innovative
developments in the field of nanotechnology and the
formation of advanced research areas in the field of
biochemistry, mathematics, physics (AFM device)
can help in the fight against Covid-19.
In conclusion, nanotechnology can revolutionize
the fight against COVID-19 by providing efficient
working methods, materials and tools with immediate
benefits in medical research and practice.
4 CONCLUSIONS
The most successful universities, in addition to using
modern approaches to online education, have created
an online community of students, teachers,
administrators, which contributed to improving the
quality of education and reducing the stress of social
isolation.
Under these conditions, universities will develop
new forms of cooperation, the following primary
tasks will be solved:
- Development of measures to support teachers
and students;
- Strategic planning, taking into account the
associated risks to predict the short-term and long-
term consequences of the pandemic;
- Finding ways to effectively transition to online
learning;
- Development of distance learning assessment
methods;
- High quality educational services.
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