Digital by design, not by default: Resilience in higher education

When a cyberattack shuts down a university’s IT systems, or a pandemic forces thousands of students online overnight, how do higher education institutions cope? And what do they learn? Drawing on a case study across four countries, this article explores two strikingly different approaches to resilience in universities: one rooted in digital flexibility, the other in the strength of analogue  tradition. The findings challenge the assumption that going digital is always the only answer.

Whether pandemic-induced disruptions, cyberattacks or other disruptive events – universities repeatedly face exceptional situations in which established routines suddenly break down. Curricula must be adapted at short notice, evaluations reorganised and examination processes restructured. Decisions must be made under uncertainty, digital solutions established and workflows kept stable.

These are not hypothetical scenarios.The COVID-19 pandemic revealed how quickly established teaching formats and practices can become unavailable and how crucial flexibility and agility are for higher education. In a crisis like this, creative solutions and ideas take on a more crucial role than ever before. Coping with crisis involves the ability to reallocate resources under time and resource constraints to collectively create learning experiences and to rethink existing structures for teaching, going beyond individual experience. So what separates institutions that navigate these moments well from those that simply endure them?

When routines break down: Two capacities that make the difference

The answer, our research suggests, lies in two closely linked capacities: resilience and creativity (Navigating Crisis. The Learn-and-Do Kit, 2026).¹

Resilience, as we use the term, goes beyond simply surviving a crisis and returning to the status quo. It is a process spanning three phases: anticipation (recognising threats and preparing before a crisis strikes), coping (managing the acute moment under time and resource pressure) and adaptation (embedding what has been learned into lasting institutional change). It is not about bouncing back, it is about bouncing forward! 

Creativity, on the other hand, is not an add-on to resilience, it is a core part of it. It comes into play across all three phases: as forward-looking scenario-building before a crisis, as real-time improvisation during a crisis, and as the translation of ad-hoc solutions into lasting institutional practices afterwards. Crucially, creativity here is not an individual trait but a social process, shaped by the cultural, political and institutional boundaries of each organisation. 

The key insight from our research is this: there is no single formula for how resilience and creativity play out in practice. Higher education institutions can draw on entirely different strengths to be resilient. 

Resilience through and against digital technologies

In our research, this “no single formula” principle showed up most clearly in how differently institutions approached one question: the role of digital technology in teaching and learning. Should universities embrace it fully, resist it selectively, or find their own path somewhere in between? The answer, we found, depends far less on technological availability than on institutional identity, disciplinary culture and strategic vision. Digital technology is not a solution in itself, it is a lens through which the choices universities make about their purpose become visible.

Digital tools can support adaptability, offering flexible models of teaching and learning and new ways of engaging with students. But selective resistance to certain forms of digitalisation can equally reflect a resilient stance. One that protects pedagogical quality, academic freedom and the social role of the university. Rather than presenting resilience as unconditional adaptation to every new technology, we frame it as the capacity to navigate change intentionally and with care: knowing when to embrace, when to adapt, and when to hold firm.

Opposite ends of the spectrum

To better understand these different paths of resilience in higher education, we spotlight two institutions that stand in strong contrast to one another. On the one hand an Open University in Portugal, where digital education has been central to its identity for decades. On the other hand a University of Applied Sciences in Germany, a traditional face-to-face institution with a strong commitment to in-person teaching and learning.  

Face-to-face first: Navigating digital change with caution in Germany

The first case is a Bachelor’s programme in Social Work at a private University of Applied Sciences in Germany. The institution is deeply rooted in tradition, with a strong identity tied to face-to-face learning. Before COVID-19, digital practices were largely absent from teaching. Where digitisation did occur, it was mostly in administrative processes. In the classroom, the uptake of digital technology did not take place due to barriers at instructor and leadership levels, such as emotional overload, fear of unfamiliar technology, limited incentives, capabilities and a lack of clear strategic mandate. These reasons to resist digital teaching are also reflected by Bronwen Deacon and Melissa Laufer in their blog post resistance to change in higher education. Notably, several interviewees described the university as resilient, explicitly linking this resilience to its rigid and enduring institutional structures:

This is resilience as stability, built into the very fabric of the institution. But stability has a flipside. The Social Work programme’s practice- and relationship-oriented disciplinary logic structurally privileges a pedagogy based on presence. The cultivation of relational, reflexive, and professional-ethical competences, alongside creative problem-solving capacity, frequently presupposes immediate co-presence. This shared physical presence is what sustains the rationale for in-person teaching.

However, the rigidity which is justified in the institution as well as the discipline also appears to limit the university’s capacity to respond quickly to technological change. One interviewee reflected on the institutional inertia in light of rapidly developing technologies such as AI:

“The problem is that things move slowly here and there is a huge bureaucratic process behind it all. You can’t just do something overnight, it has to go through a number of people and a number of committees. And that makes it difficult to act quickly.” – Support Staff from Germany

This illustrates a form of resilience grounded in institutional continuity and clearly defined procedures, particularly evident during the COVID-19 pandemic. Without prior digital infrastructure, the university was not prepared for overnight online teaching and struggled initially, yet it coped through analogue creativity such as small-group in-person sessions and swiftly reverted to its face-to-face model post-crisis, which proved more effective for their Social Work programme’s interactive pedagogy. The same longstanding structures and regulations that are perceived as a stabilising force made rapid digital adoption challenging, including for emerging tech like AI, but preserved the core identity of hands-on creativity in higher education. In this case, resilience manifests not through digital agility, but through consistency and a cautious return to traditions that foster pedagogical creativity.

Digital is the default: Lessons from Portugal’s Open University

By contrast, the Portuguese case is located at a public Open University whose entire educational model is based on distance learning and focuses on a Master in Comparative Studies: Literature and Other Arts. Founded on the principles of inclusion and accessibility, the institution has always aimed to serve students unable to attend traditional universities, for reasons such as living in remote rural areas, juggling full-time jobs, caring for family members or facing disabilities that limit money. One administrator emphasised the mission:

“In practice, [the] university was created to give space to students that are not able to go to other traditional universities.” – Assistant professor and Didactical Support from Portugal

For over three decades, the university has adapted to changing societal and technological contexts. This adaptability is evident in how the university responds to changing student expectations:

“What you start seeing is trends. That the students that choose distance learning will want the full flexibility that distance learning allows. They do not want a mixed thing. They want a real … [online experience] especially now, where people are much more confident and much more comfortable with online learning and with online assessment because of COVID and these changes that we had.” – Assistant professor and Didactical Support from Portugal

The quote highlights how the university actively monitors and responds to emerging trends in student preferences, particularly the growing demand for fully online formats. Rather than resisting these developments, the institution embraces them by positioning flexibility as a core offering.

Interviewees’ reports of students transferring from traditional universities underscore the efficacy of this strategy and signal a deliberate institutional commitment to adaptability. Here, resilience is cultivated through strategic foresight and an explicit embrace of digital, networked creativity, treating online modalities as sites of collaboration and innovation rather than constraint. As one leader from Portugal observed, “We don’t have a chance if we are not [creative], so it’s not only equality, it’s a condition of existence”. In this design, adaptability is built into structures and philosophy, where creativity fuels resilience by contrast to the German case where creativity is frequently anchored in co-present, analog practice. 

Navigating change without losing purpose

These contrasting cases reveal that resilience in higher education thrives when paired with context-specific creativity: digital networked in Portugal, analog-rooted in Germany, neither superior, but complementary pathways shaped by identity and crisis demands. Comparing the two cases, a striking pattern emerges: resilience looks fundamentally different depending on where you start from. But in both cases, it is the result of intentional choices, not accident.

Our case studies clearly show that there is no single blueprint for resilience in higher education. In the Portugal case, resilience is not expressed through rigid continuity, but through strategic foresight and a long-standing orientation toward flexibility. In the German case, however, resilience is embodied in tradition and stability. In sum, resilience manifests in diverse forms and is shaped by institutional identity.

1. Resilience does not happen by accident. It grows out of deliberate choices by university leadership and staff that are aligned with core institutional values.  
2. Institutional structures shape adaptive capacity. In some cases, resilience comes from stability and structure. But these same systems can make it harder to adapt quickly when technologies evolve. 
3. Resilience also depends on mindset: how institutions frame digitalisation, whether as opportunity or obligation, often reflects their internal culture more than their location.

The digital transformation of higher education is not a sprint: it is a marathon. Resilience does not mean reacting to every trend, but navigating change with intention, care and the capacity to balance innovation with reflection. Perhaps true resilience in higher education lies not in choosing between digital or analogue, but in the ability to choose: intentionally, thoughtfully and again and again. What makes a resilient institution, as individual as it is, comes down to the ability to navigate change without losing sight of the university’s purpose.²

1. For a deeper dive into the concepts and practical tools, see our publication ”Navigating Crisis. The Learn-and-Do Kit to strengthen resilience through creativity within higher education institutions”. It draws on research insights from 12 university case studies across seven countries and has been designed to support higher education institutions in becoming more resilient. It provides theoretical background knowledge and contains the depiction of distinct practices that link resilience and creativity before, during and after crises. ↩︎
2. To find out, over the past six years (2020–2026), the research projects “Organisational Adaptivity in German Higher Education (OrA)” and “Organisational Resilience and Creativity: The Future of Educational Technologies in Higher Education (ORC)” accompanied universities through this period of profound upheaval. We examined how resilience and creativity interact with the strategic use of educational technologies.  And what that means for how universities prepare for, cope with and learn from disruption. ↩︎

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