The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in temporary physical closures of schools and higher education institutions around the world. In higher education, approximately 220 million students globally have been affected due to the disruption caused by COVID-19, leaving policymakers and educational institutions with unprecedented challenges such as how to mitigate learning losses, how to deploy remote learning, how to safely reopen educational institutions and how to ensure that underrepresented, vulnerable and disadvantaged learners are not left behind. The COVID-19 pandemic has already had an unprecedented impact on higher education worldwide in virtually all aspects of its functioning. In the academic year 2019/2020, the pandemic transformed the way teaching took place, accelerating transformation that was already taking place in the form of online learning and teaching. The pandemic has also had direct impact on how research is carried out, on university operations (in terms of campus closures and the shift to online learning) and on university governance, with management staff needing to take a range of emergency decisions and allow additional flexibility in many areas of activity. The pandemic has also highlighted the importance of universities' community engagement. This analytical report provides a synthesis of the emerging evidence on what impact COVID-19 has had on higher education in Europe, with a special focus on three thematic areas: teaching and learning; the social dimension of higher education (i.e. the effect on underrepresented, vulnerable and disadvantaged learners); and student mobility. [This report was prepared with NESET.]