Abstract:

Tertiary education is becoming an important economic factor as the concept of a knowledge and information economy emerges and is being promoted in developed countries. In it, the competitiveness of an economic entity depends on the production, reproduction and communication of "relevant" knowledge, which is the main economic exchange in this economy.

In practice, the development of disciplines using highly specialized knowledge (new technologies) should ensure competitiveness, or development of services and production of products with high added value.

The knowledge economy asks to be involved in increasing economic competitiveness after higher education institutions and thus to focus more on existing and emerging markets. For colleges, this creates a third role that they must fulfill. Generally speaking, the third role is to broaden the responsibilities and tasks of higher education to tasks not directly related to scientific research, or to creative activities at art schools or to education in general. The third role, however, is differently defined in the theoretical texts describing the transformations of higher education institutions under the pressure of economic and social globalization, but also variously used in strategic documents of public education policy from international to local level.

The aim of the paper is to compare the theoretical approaches to fulfilling the third role of universities in the current higher education and based on results of primary and secondary research prove the model of access particular selected university- Tomas Bata University in Zlin. The content of the contribution is based on representative research at 46 Czech universities, revealing the perception of the concept and fulfillment of the so-called third university roles and the results of the continuous research of the Faculty of Multimedia Communications in 151 cooperating companies.

The outcome is the already mentioned model of the marketing approach of universities to cooperate with stakeholders in fulfilling the third role of universities.

Keywords:

Marketing of college, the third role of universities, cooperation with practice.