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Universities’ Third Mission: Global Discourses and National Imperatives

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Abstract

Universities are increasingly pressurized to contribute to the socio-economic development of their societies. This has led to increasing calls for stronger societal engagement around the third mission (TM). In this paper, we contextualize developments surrounding TM by comparing policy approaches in Norway and the Czech Republic. Our analysis shows similarities as well as differences and points to the importance of assessing TM developments in the light of wider policy dynamics and priorities.

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Acknowledgements

The research leading to these results has received funding from the Norwegian Financial Mechanism 2009–2014 and the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports under Project Contract No. MSMT-5397/2015.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Agderforskning, Kristiansand, Norway

    Rómulo Pinheiro & James Karlsen

  2. Centre for Higher Education Studies, Prague, Czech Republic

    Jan Kohoutek & Mitchell Young

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  1. Rómulo Pinheiro
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  2. James Karlsen
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  3. Jan Kohoutek
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  4. Mitchell Young
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Correspondence to Rómulo Pinheiro.

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Pinheiro, R., Karlsen, J., Kohoutek, J. et al. Universities’ Third Mission: Global Discourses and National Imperatives. High Educ Policy 30, 425–442 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41307-017-0057-5

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