This essay analyzes the impact of COVID-19 in higher education based on national policies implemented during the current outbreak. Additionally, it enlists and discusses the proposed strategies developed to support higher education in a post-pandemic scenario based on educational and political perspectives.

The changes of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0) are inevitable in all areas of daily life, from government to healthcare and commerce, including the educational field. Education 4.0 brings potential challenges to schools around the globe, such as digital technology, personalized data, and a connected world. Thus, this paper presents a Mexican case study about a classroom enhanced with digital technology to study the challenges that both students and teachers face to acquire and transmit the skills and competencies that Industry 4.0 requires. As a preliminary result, we found that the probability of students accepting this technology for learning is very high.

The paper’s proposition is that Mexican public universities potentiate social oriented activity for gsed purposes while agents in Knowledge and Innovation Networking. But they must comply with the structural restrictions of communicative action. The aim is to present communication principles for Knowledge and Innovation Networking (KIN) that promotes Green Sustainable Economic Development (gsed) in Latin American societies, characterized by heterogeneous cultural traits and varied levels of economic and political development, within countries themselves and between them. Prime gsed issues are the preservation of natural resources considering their use and enjoyment by the coming generations, the right to material progress of developing countries as well as the obligation of developed economies to reduce their energy consumption (raw energy and processed commodities). However, the validity of any gsed model is questionable unless it is coherent in terms of what gsed is considered both locally and globally, thus the relevance of networking for knowledge and innovation (see Hidalgo 2011), integrated with regional, national and international innovation systems. How can Knowledge and Innovation Networking (kin) increase university participation in the promotion of gsed? This is a question that this paper aims to answer and provide some strategies to increase participation and contribution to gsed. Knowledge and innovation networks are environments for participation of key social groups where concurrence protocols ease both lawfulness and transparency regarding market issues (global, regional and local) and sustainable development. On-line kin interactions implementation are insufficient for gsed, but will provide participants (state, business, universities and individuals) favorable environments for coordinated actions that represent added value to each and all participants with a reduced hierarchical control because the overall purpose is redefinition of gsed principles that meaningful taking into consideration each participant’s condition.