New Institutional Imperatives: The Third Mission and the Contemporary University
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Sheffield
Department Name: Geography
Abstract
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Organisations
| Description | Final Seminar Precie |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Primary Audience | |
| Results and Impact | This event will draw the themes of the four seminars together as the basis of an important transdisciplinary agenda for research and policy practice. The event will emphasise the interrelated nature of their themes and consider how their co-ordination is integral to the future of the Third Mission, and the future of the university. The seminar will consider the ways in which individual academics can continue intellectual projects within this new formulation of university governance. The concern for many academics, especially within the social sciences, is that the increased commercialisation of the university will lead to the marginalisation of theoretical and critical forms of knowledge. The session will explore the means by which Third Mission activities and intellectual projects are reliant upon one another; and how the Third Mission provides an institutional imperative to develop new forms of knowledge and their application, for which theoretical and critical understandings are central. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | |
| Description | Seminar Four entitled: Enterprise and the Third Mission |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Primary Audience | |
| Results and Impact | Stimulating the interface between universities and the private sector may has been the core of the Third Mission. Public policy almost perpetually seeks to promote the engagement of universities with businesses through programmes of knowledge transfer/exchange. Whether through commercialisation or collaboration, a core aim of the Third Mission has been to realise the 'value' of universities. This raises the question as to whether universities need to become more like businesses or whether they could have an alternative competitive advantage. This seminar will cover themes relating to academic entrepreneurship, commercial collaboration, and the policy programmes and initiatives that aim to facilitate universities interfacing with the economy. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | |
| Description | Seminar One entitled: The Transformation of the Contemporary University |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Primary Audience | |
| Results and Impact | While universities are key teaching and research institutions, new political imperatives have demanded they assume a heightened societal role. Although the transformation is often institutionally specific, although common characteristics are observable. The focus of this first seminar will address issues including the purpose of contemporary universities and the nature of institutional transformation. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | |
| Description | Seminar Precie |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Primary Audience | |
| Results and Impact | This document contains a precie of the speakers included in our seminar series |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | |
| Description | Seminar Three entitled: Politics, Policy, and the Third Mission |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Primary Audience | |
| Results and Impact | While universities have long since been considered a form of least cost state apparatus, Higher Education in the UK is in an era of unprecedented change. The shifting contours of the Higher Education landscape have and continue to see the relationship between the Government and universities (and the sector more broadly) be renegotiated. The importance of universities to both the economy and society is widely acknowledged, yet extending the socio-economic impact of universities remains a political priority and so this seminar will examine the role of public policy in guiding and facilitating these new imperatives. Speakers include those with expertise and experience in the politics of higher education, all of whom will make valuable contributions to the dialogue on the dynamics between the Third Mission, universities, and the state. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | |
| Description | Seminar Two entitled: Society & the Third Mission |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Primary Audience | |
| Results and Impact | Universities have increasingly been required by the state to fulfil a wider societal role to warrant continued public expenditure on higher education. However, even in times of financial austerity the societal demands upon universities are unrelenting, and arguably more important than ever. Whereas the notion of the entrepreneurial university may be conceived as a capitalist idea, the nature of entrepreneurialism has been extended to include greater civic and community building roles. This seminar brings together a range of speakers with different perspectives on community and civic engagement to reconsider the societal role and expectations of universities. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | |