Abstract:

The E3M research project “European Indicators and Ranking Methodology for University Third Mission” is a project co-financed by the European Commission under its Lifelong Learning Programme, coordinated by Universidad Politécnica de Valencia and developed by eight partners from seven different European countries (Universities of Helsinki, Krems, León, Maribor, Porto, the Istituto Superiore Mario Boella, and the Dublin Institute of Technology). This project is oriented to create a ranking methodology for measuring the Third Mission activities of universities.The Third Mission of universities adds to the classical missions of the universities, teaching and research, a new approach that reflects all contributions of universities to society.Although several known and accepted rankings systems exist for the teaching and research missions of the university, there are no commonly agreed indicators or a cohesive methodology that assess the Third Mission activities of universities. The E3M project deals with this need. Third Mission activities are many and varied. Considering this, the E3M project proposed three dimensions for structuring these activities which are indicative of the Third Mission as a whole: Continuing Education (CE), Technology Transfer & Innovation (TTI) and Social Engagement (SE). For each of these dimensions, the main operational processes were identified. Therefore, the identification and definition of processes within the dimensions led in the direction to obtain a selected set of indicators which determine the basis of a ranking methodology criterion. For achieving a significant collection of indicators a three step process was defined and later applied. As a first step, a wide collection of indicators associated to each process was proposed. The primary indicators set was achieved as a result of a deep literature review and the work of the project research team. A second step implied an expert’s judgement in a process based on the Delphi methodology, producing a selection of the most relevant indicators. At this process a total of twenty external experts were consulted in three rounds with different and specific purposes but with the common objective to reach a consensus and get a reduced and more refined list of indicators. Finally, a third step was compounded by an evaluation of the feasibility of the indicators set. As a result of all this procedure, a final and homogeneous group of indicators was produced in the three areas of the Third Mission. They intend to satisfy the need of incorporating Third Mission indicators in the evaluation of the university activities. Furthermore, and in order to detail best practices in the three dimensions of Third Mission, six case studies were carried out at several Higher Education Institutions in Europe. The institutions were Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, Politecnico di Torino, University of Cambridge, University of Turku, Dublin Institute of Technology and Széchenyi István University. Visits were also used to check the opinion of these HEIs about the indicators selected through a confrontation with institutional representatives of the Third Mission activities in the three fields.To conclude, a global web for European Third Mission providers was built to provide access and allow European institutions to enter data regarding their activities in the Third Mission. This will be a useful tool to benchmark institutions and compare their own indicators and services across Europe.

Keywords:

Universities, Third Mission, indicators, ranking methodology.