This paper focuses on the role of higher education (HE) and its connection to recovery efforts during times of crisis, with a focus on the NextGeneration EU (NGEU) initiative. Launched in 2020 by the European Commission, NGEU aims to drive the European Union's post-pandemic recovery while enhancing its long-term resilience (NextGenerationEU, 2025). NGEU represents a significant departure from prior EU instruments. Firstly, for the first time, the EU was granted the ability to run a fiscal deficit to address an economic crisis (Miró, 2021). Secondly, accessing NGEU’s approximately €800 billion budget requires Member States to submit National Recovery and Resilience Plans (NRRPs), which have become central components of a new governance model (Buti & Fabbrini, 2022). Despite their relevance, little is known about how NRRPs have been designed and implemented in what concerns HE in particular. Being so, this study critically examines the emergence of new imaginaries for HE and also the shifts in governance to meet global economic demands during crisis. This approach views recovery as a platform for advancing education reform and marketization (Zancajo et al, 2022), creating space for new actors, interests, and governance modes based on performance metrics to construct (or repurpose pre-existing) imaginaries of education (Molla & Cuthbert, 2023). This understanding is particularly critical in HE, because the idea of its pivotal role in fostering the knowledge economy in the 21st century has been paramount and associated with a transnational narrative about HE value as an economical asset (Alves & Tomlinson, 2021). The prevalence of such transnational narratives and trends does not prevent the recognition of national specificity and the paper presents an empirical study of four NRRPs from Southern European countries: Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain. These countries were selected due to: a) their participation in the "solidarity coalition," which displayed political alignment in favour of NGEU (Fabbrini, 2023); b) Greece and Portugal’s underperforming research and innovation (R&I) systems within this coalition; and c) their shared status as Mediterranean countries facing common challenges, such as preventing higher education student dropout and fostering modern, effective educational systems, issues that have persisted since the 2008 crisis (Cocozza, 2014). By exploring convergences and divergences across these four NRRPs, we aim at mapping the roles assigned to HE, considering education, research, innovation, economic and technological development, social change, and workforce preparation.

Alves, M. G.; Tomlinson, M. (2021) The changing value of higher education in England and Portugal: Massification, marketization and public good. European Educational Research Journal, 20, 2, 176-192. Buti, M., & Fabbrini, S. (2022). Next generation EU and the future of economic governance: towards a paradigm change or just a big one-off? Journal of European Public Policy, 30, 4, 676–695. Cocozza, A. (2014). Labour-Market, Education and Lifelong Guidance in the European Mediterranean Countries. Italian Journal of Sociology of Education, 6(3), 244-269. Fabbrini, S. (2023). Going beyond the pandemic: ‘next generation eu’ and the politics of sub-regional coalitions. Comp Eur Polit 21, 64–81. Miró, J. (2021). Debating fiscal solidarity in the EU: interests, values and identities in the legitimation of the Next Generation EU plan. Journal of European Integration, 44(3), 307–325. Molla, T., & Cuthbert, D. (2023). Crisis and policy imaginaries: higher education reform during a pandemic. Higher Education, 86(1), 45-63. Tight, M. (2024). The crisis literature in higher education. Higher Education Quarterly, 78, e12504. Zancajo, A., Verger, A. & Bolea, P. (2022). Digitalization and beyond: the effects of Covid-19 on post-pandemic educational policy and delivery in Europe, Policy and Society, 41, 1, 111–128.