The paper aims at exploring the connection between the emerging missions of University and the evolution of the institutional ones - didactic and research - in the Italian and European scenario. Specifically, the perspective of corporate and public communication is considered in this paper as a strategic platform for University committed in generating and disseminating knowledge and promoting activities which have social and economic spillovers on civic society and environment at large (D’Ambrosi et al. 2023; Boffo & Cocorullo 2019), according to an emerging “quintuplex helix” model approach (Carayannis et al. 2009, 2010, 2012).

In a rapidly changing scenario, the value of “Civic University” (Dobson, Ferrari 2023; Goddard, Kempton 2016) is arising nowadays, also supported by reforms, normatives (Blasi 2023; Lombardinilo et al. 2021; Moscati 2022) and practices in the field of “University Impact”' (REF 2028; VQR 2020-2024). Such a vision identifies the medium-long-term effect of University in changing and innovating the surrounding environment as well as academic values and practices themselves: this potential, which is becoming more and more strategic according to several international guidelines (EUA 2021), aims at framing and integrating both the economic and cultural mission (“Third Mission”; Boffo, Moscati 2015) and the social mission (“Fourth Mission”) of higher education as a whole.

From this context, in this research framework a specific attention will be dedicated to the “internal” and “organizational” dimension of the Impact (Dobson, Ferrari 2021; D’Ambrosi et al. 2023), focusing on the middle-long term effects that the emerging policies and activities, aiming at strategically promoting the economic and socio-cultural value of the high-education system, can express on universities themselves and their academic community and activities. From the relational perspective privileged by this study, the aim is to investigate in which ways the “New Missions” of University can play as a multiplier of relationships in both the internal and external environment and, by this way, globally reframe University’s strategic model to integrate new and old scopes and activities (Barnett 2018; Carayannis et al. 2012): indeed, by regenerating University’s “intangible assets”, such emerging missions can innovate structurally the academic system itself in the long period. Indeed, a virtuous “rebound effect” can foster both research and high-education processes themselves, to stimulate scholars to adopt practices and approaches of “self-reform” and innovation from the bottom which are based on stakeholders relationship, listening and engagement, as well as on the value of strategic partnerships involving different categories of internal and external actors.

Methods: the study carries out a multi-case approach and an in-depth survey, involving a selected group of academic experts and privileged witnesses. Specifically, the case histories concentrate on the example offered by different academic institutions in Italy and abroad, as Sapienza University of Rome, Polytechnic of Milan, Ghent University and others.

The study highlights some recommendations for institutionalizing innovation processes in the higher education system based on stakeholder engagement and relationships, to encourage the vision and concrete responsibility of Civic University as a driver for economic development and social change.

The relevance of the third mission (TM) in academic norms, discourses and practices is a topical issue today (Laredo, 2007; Boffo, Moscati, 2015; Perulli, Ramella, Rostan, Semenza, 2018). The guidelines of all universities and departments focus on the question of what lies beyond the realm of teaching and research. While it is relatively easy to state that the third mission is not the first and is not the second among university missions, a precise and positive definition of what the third mission is (or should/might be) does not seem to be easy to identify.

The way in which the third mission is understood by different Italian universities shows very clearly the extreme breadth of the concept, which is often the subject of vibrant debate. Italian universities understand and turn ministerial norms related to the third mission in a diverse and imaginative range of practices and discourses. The territorial differences that characterize the contexts in which Italian University operate, the many disparate disciplinary and academic traditions make the third mission a real passepartout concept.

Starting from a research carried out by researchers from the CNR, the University of Milan Bicocca and the University of Pavia this paper analyzes the variety of actions that can be traced under the umbrella of the third mission in 12 Italian university contexts. Based on interviews with key informants involved in the third mission projects (both in academia and among economic and social partners) and on documents and websites of universities, we will propose an analysis of the main operational declinations that the loose concept of third mission takes.

A non-rigid definition of the third mission certainly has several positive sides. Indeed, it makes it possible to disregard preset formulas and excessive rigidity and normalization, making it a potentially productive field, creative and open to variation. It also allows the concept to be turned in ways and formats that are variable and adaptable to circumstances, times, and contexts. However, the potential creativity embedded in such breadth and the heterogeneity of the third mission actions finds limits where it becomes an - increasingly important - mechanism for evaluating and funding today's university.

​​The contribution presents the first results of a participatory research and development project of Public Engagement (PE, thereafter) at the University of Calabria (Unical, thereafter) aimed to reconstruct (present and past) PE experience in order to define a shared vision of social mission and to co-design future initiatives.

Today’s social challenges call universities to strengthen their Third Mission (TM, thereafter) and to commit to valuable and impactful activities in economic, social and cultural development: a commitment that should be innovative, participatory, transparent and accountable to society and (Vargiu, 2015; Goddard et al., 2016; Palumbo, 2019; Lo Presti et al., 2023) that should not confine TM only to technology transfer (Boffo, Moscati, 2015) but develop “an alternative model of the civic university that integrates teaching, research, and engagement with the outside world such that each enhances the other” (Goddard, 2018, p. 362).

The founders of Unical have made a civic commitment to a poor and complex territory like Calabria. Yet, the social mission started to be institutionalized only with the University Strategic Plan 2020-22, where it has been included among TM objectives as PE for the social and civic development and the reducing of social inequalities.

In 2021, following the Social Mission rector's delegate designation, the PE participatory research and development project was designed and launched. Based on the assumption that social change is all more adequate, satisfying and lasting if it results from a shared process in which everyone may recognise themselves, the project was founded on principles and methods of community development and organisational empowerment: Appreciative Inquiry approach and Alternative Dispute Resolution (Barrett, Fry 2005; Cooperrider, Whitney, 2005; Sclavi, 2003; Stavros, Torres, 2018). The objectives were the following two : 1) to increase and spread knowledge of PE history and experience in Unical; 2) to build, in a shared way, proposals for PE enhancement and design common initiatives.

In 2021-2022, 93 face-to-face interviews were conducted by snowball sampling in 14 departments and some service centres, involving department directors, rectors' delegates, lecturers and administrative staff. The analysis portrayed the most common representations of PE and its evolution from the early Seventies (when Unical was founded). The PE initiatives (from 2019 to present) were also collected by a questionnaire (annual monitoring) inspired by guidelines of the Italian National Agency for the Evaluation of Universities and Research Institutes (see SUA/TM-IS). The database kept track of initiatives (1,975 in 2019-23) and allowed it to delve into PE characteristics in Unical. Furthermore, reconstructing PE experiences’ heritage has increased awareness of the community's roots and illuminates local resources and obstacles (cultural aspects, university functioning, milieu features).

The results showed that social inclusion at Unical is present but not always central. However, there comes out some practices aimed at promoting social justice and at creating greater awareness on the issues of inclusion and combating inequalities that are part of the Unical and experience and presented in the contribution.

European as well as Italian Higher Education (HE) policies acknowledge the need for a reframing of relationships between society, science and innovation which implies inclusive governance to ensure co-responsibility. Public Engagement with Research (PER) is one of the components of increasing efforts aimed to this end. Growing financial and operational support to PER needs a better understanding of science-society dynamics.

The paper will present the PLACES project, which is funded under the PRIN (National Interest Research Projects) funding scheme by the Italian Ministry of University and Research. The project started a few months ago. By the time of the presentation, we will be able to share our recent advancements on the theoretical foundations and the methodological instruments of our work.

The acronym PLACES stands for “Portraits and Landscapes of Academic Community Engaged Scholarship”. We appreciate that different approaches and institutional arrangements shape diverse forms of PER. Hence, PLACES aims at filling important gaps in the evidence base on how proactive science-society relationships take place at individual, institutional and systemic level within diverse higher education systems.

Literature acknowledges that a great diversity of practices falls within most widely accepted definitions of PER and evidences an increasingly vague definition of both terms ‘public’ and ‘engagement’ (Weingart et alii 2021). In this respect, we circumscribe our research interest to forms of PER which are explicitly aimed at engendering genuine societal change. While we appreciate that this focus does not fully disentangles the definitory issue, we adopt the expression “transformative engagement” to guide our observations. Hence the reference to the transformative mission of universities as a way to affirm the societal role of these institutions as well as to frame our empirical research.

On such premises, PLACES intends to study how Higher Education Institutions’ (HEIs) strategies and HE and research policies affect the way transformative PER is approached and practiced. This will be coupled by a parallel investigation stream on how engaged scholars behave, understand, and interact with citizens, and their motives for engaging in science-related activities, through specific reference to their professional biographies and career paths.

Prominent cases of community engaged scholars in large HEIs of three European countries (Portraits) will be examined within the wider institutional and HE policy context in which their academic life has taken place (Landscapes), so to understand how and to which extent their career and success as engaged scholars can be related to the overall operational framework.

PLACES contemplates the different PER policies to connect them to individual academic careers, so to clarify under which circumstances engaged scholarship is more likely to prosper and function to its full potential. Italian HES will be examined against emerging evidence from two other European national contexts – France and UK – so to frame the analysis of this national context within a wider context. This is intended to respond to the need for new area of investigation on PER such as “individual life cycle effects, the role of organisational contexts and incentives, cross-national comparisons” (Perkmann et alii 2021).

The current times are characterized by the accelerating processes of social, political and economic change. They not only affect life styles, but give less and less space to a shareable interpretation, as they are no longer the product of progressive evolutions, but represent processes of breakage under way which make previous experiences hard to use.

Universities’ functioning is involved in this process particularly because of the various requests coming from the society implying the transformation of their internal organization together with the reconsideration of purposes and the way of pursuing them.

From one side the requests coming from the changing economy made the use of knowledge more relevant than curiosity driven research; from the other side the growing relevance of social needs - at specific local level as well as at global level - requires new ways of doing activities together with external stakeholders. Progressively, the universities were invited to accept various way of collaboration with external entities and this process of outreach activities was named “Third Mission”.

- As in other countries, in the Italian system of higher education the Third Mission at the first stage was mostly represented by Technology Transfer activities. Afterwards Public Engagement initiatives progressively acquired space.

This institutionalization process has been made visible by a very recent qualitative research carried out on twelve universities by the authors of this paper together with others colleagues.

According to our research in all universities Public Engagement embrace quite a number of activities: from cultural programs in peripheral urban areas to environment protection; from didactical activities in jail to special programs for the dissemination of scientific knowledge. In this framework, the concept of ‘Sustainability’ represents one of the more diffused example of Public Engagement activity in the Italian universities: the Milan Polytechnic “Strategic Plan of Sustainability” aims for a personal sustainable and inclusive growth as well as for a sustainable growth of its urban environment through a number of initiatives in peripheral areas. Similarly, the University of Padova is supporting the city administration with a sustainability project, while the University of Roma 3, as well as those of Calabria, Venezia, and Milano-Bicocca are developing cultural activities in their own neighborhoods.

- It is also worth to notice that many of Public Engagement initiatives in the Italian universities are flourishing even if they are not a source of significant economic return. This is just one of the many clues that make the spread of Public Engagement part of the current transformation of universities’ purposes.