Strielkowski, W. (2020). How can the COVID-19 pandemic help higher education? doi: 10.13140/RG.2.2.11331.96804 How can the COVID-19 pandemic help higher education? Wadim Strielkowski Prague Business School, Werichova 29, 15200 Prague, Czech Republic e-mail: strielkowski@pbs-education.cz On March 26, 2020 the first online PhD defence took place at the Erasmus School of Economics in Rotterdam, the Netherlands (Eur.nl, 2020). Zhaowen Qian defended her PhD dissertation 'Time-Varying Integration and Portfolio Choices in the European Capital Markets’. In Japan, despite the fact that spring graduation ceremonies were cancelled because of the coronavirus pandemic, the students at the Business Breakthrough University in Tokyo attended remotely by controlling avatar robots from their homes (Reuters, 2020). Digitalization in higher education and learning allows streaming lectures online or allow professors and students to interact in the virtual environments but not everyone is ready for this. Many young people who do not spend much time in the “real life” and rather prefer playing video games or interacting with others of social network platforms confess that they would have preferred being lectured in real classrooms and in real universities. Sometimes this is just a feature of habit but often this is required due to the difficulties with personal time management and procrastination (see Strielkowski et al., 2020). Social distancing and quarantine lockdowns might help the majority of academics and researchers to complete the transition not only to the online education, but also to the online defences, online entrance exams, and perhaps even online jobs. After all, researchers in the academia without any obligations to teach can do most of their work online. Working on research projects, preparing and submitting reports and journal papers, even theses supervision – all of that can be done online. Two years ago, I participated in the “NextGen VOICES: A postdoc's purpose” organized by the Science journal. We were asked to provide an answer to the following question: “What is the purpose of a postdoc? Address this question by writing a job advertisement for the perfect postdoc position”. This is what I wrote: “Approaching 40 and still without a tenured position? Join our Ivy League university and let the Matthew effect boost your career. We are a cronyism-free workplace. You are encouraged to pursue your own research interests. Your publication output is more important for us than any teaching or administrative obligations. Our prestigious location incurs high living costs, but you can work remotely and enjoy more time with your family” (Strielkowski, 2018). My letter was placed into the “Idealists” section. Back then, such an advert seemed to be unrealistic. Now, only two years later, my job advert for the “ideal postdoc’s position” can become a reality. There is a plethora of bright and talented researchers who would have greatly contributed to the work of many prominent universities if the salaries paid by those universities were enough to maintain their living. The costs of living in Cambridge or Berkeley are enormous