Health Emergency
The circular economy brings a transformative COVID-19 recovery strategy. It helps the transition to a future that delivers economic, environmental, and societal benefits, while weakening the risk of upcoming crises.
In the last year and a half, the global health emergency posed by COVID-19 has not only changed the world-wide economy and trade, movement patterns, job market and employment opportunities but has deeply transformed the ways we think about the present and plan for the future. The deep economic and social effects and geopolitical repercussions observed strongly influence healthcare and science which are further implicated into the changes in society and education which, in their turn, would bring the much needed transformation in economy and culture.
On the one hand, the pandemic required response through science and technology wherein Nanotechnology has come into play since SARS-CoV-2 has nanometric dimensions. The nanotech approaches can address the numerous clinical and public healthcare challenges that have arisen from COVID-19, the fight against it, and the ongoing mitigation strategies.
On the other hand, the COVID-19 crisis has significantly accelerated the need to digitally transform the education and the training systems. Higher education experienced an emergency to strengthen its capacity to provide high-quality, inclusive digital education and with an immediate impact of the new knowledge for combating the coronavirus pandemic.
Together At A Distance
The 21st century is the century of digital communications with innovations emerging at an increasingly faster pace. Innovative and engaging learning environments are among the forerunners of digitisation. New technologies help learners to expand their personal and collaborative intellectual resources in a way that makes knowledge creation feasible.
The digitisation of higher education requires strengthening of tutors and graduates’ capacity to implement online, mixed and distance teaching and learning methods. In order to prepare for the emerging innovation-driven knowledge society, university teachers and graduates need to unify their efforts in a knowledge-creating community with a focus on advancement and shared knowledge.
The challenge of the digital era is to make well-informed decisions, and to develop insight into people’ s motivation to make the most of the technologies in the first place. Thus, three groups of focus technologies emerged whose use may result in efficient cooperative knowledge: Open Educational Resources, one-to-one computing environments, and computer data systems. The use of digital learning technologies and Open Educational Resources encourages:
Graduates
Tutors
Therefore, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development has new paradigms of education that reflect the new understanding of knowledge and creates novel possibilities for its full capacity exploitation. BUT how to successfully integrate the digital technologies in formal education to answer the fast-changing requirements for flexibility and personalization of training and learning practices?