“…The COVID-19 pandemic, which brought about the rapid transition to online learning, has accelerated change and intensified stress by closing international borders. The travel restrictions triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic have significantly impacted university finances, resulting in academic redundancies and job losses (Crawford et al, 2020 ; Cohrssen et al, 2022 ; De los Reyes et al, 2021 , 2022 ; Mahat et al, 2022a , 2022b ; Mercado, 2020 ; Mok et al, 2020 ; OCED, 2021 ; Rapanta et al, 2020 ). Even before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, increasingly regulatory approaches to higher education by government, including systemic assessments of research and reviews of education quality (Locke, 2012 , 2014 ; Teichler et al, 2013 ), resulted in organizational structural reforms.…”