Universal mappings for certain classes of operators and polynomials between Banach spaces

Abstract A well‐known result of J. Lindenstrauss and A. Pełczyński (1968) gives the existence of a universal non‐weakly compact operator between Banach spaces. We show the existence of universal non‐Rosenthal, non‐limited, and non‐Grothendieck operators. We also prove that there does not exist a universal non‐Dunford–Pettis operator, but there is a universal class of non‐Dunford–Pettis operators. Moreover, we show that, for several classes of polynomials between Banach spaces, including the non‐weakly compact polynomials, there does not exist a universal polynomial.