Bojana Ćulum

Facing New Expectations—Integrating Third Mission Activities into the University

Universities around the world have been called to (re)consider their role in society, to evaluate their mission, their relationship with various internal and external stakeholders, as well as their contribution to democratic and sustainable society. Universities are increasingly expected to be more socially accountable, to collaborate more and therefore contribute more to different public and private domains of the society. In other words, universities are impelled to assume their ‘third mission’ and to engage in various forms of interactions with local, regional, national and international business and social partners. The university pillars of teaching and research are therefore undergoing significant pressure and change. Academics are not only expected to achieve excellence in their teaching and research, but to achieve it in a way that is measurable, efficient, effective and highly relevant for the contemporary knowledge-economy and society at large. At the same time, universities have been criticized for tailoring their curricula and research as well as extending their activities by the market’s needs, thus leaving behind the civic responsibility. Authors place the issue of extending teaching and research within the wider discussion on the ‘third mission’ that thoroughly explores how universities interact with the public domain. The issues of university civic mission, education for socially responsible and active citizens, as well as the education for sustainable development, are discussed as potential answers to the pressures universities and academics are faced with on their way to become more accountable for complexity and needs of the society.

The Academic Profession and the Role of the Service Function

While teaching and research, traditionally regarded as two academic pillars, have been in the focus of numerous studies, service activity has been highlighted less. Despite the academic attention it has received lately, service is still a vaguely defined concept – or scholarly discipline – and is still searching for a more intense scientific discourse. This (sub) chapter thereby aims at contributing to the academic debate and offers some reflections on the concept of academic service, discussing data collected in 12 European countries. Highlighting the similarities and differences between senior and junior academics at universities as well as those between academics at other higher education institutions, this chapter discusses various themes linked to ‘service’: academic workload in service activities, the nature of service activities, the interconnection of service with other academic activities, ‘service character’ in academic teaching and research and academics’ views on the scholarship of service as well as their perception of institutional strategies encouraging service activities. In exploring the factors associated with the orientation of academics towards service activities, significant differences by country stand out. However, the 12-country analysis suggests that the traditional core functions of teaching and research are (still) clearly in the forefront of the academic activities, while service has remained up on the margin.

Academics and Service to the Community: An International (European) Perspective

While teaching and research have been the focus of numerous studies, service activity has been highlighted less in the academic research. Presenting targeted data and results from two international collaborative research projects on academic profession ‒ The Changing Academic Profession (CAP) and The Academic Profession in Europe: Responses to Societal Challenges (EUROAC), this chapter provides insights and offers some reflections on the concept of ‘service’, thereby discussing (quantitative and qualitative) data collected in 12 European countries. Although many academics surveyed harbour positive views about the relevance of service activities, data reveals they spend around 3 h per week on various service activities, which is less than half of the time they allocate in administrative tasks. Academics are often involved in service activities related with serving academic and disciplinary community (e.g. scientific committees, reviewer, editor), some of them get engaged in community service, but very few get engaged in the political arena. As for their community engagement, two main categories arise: first one comprising of activities integrated within teaching and research, while the other consists of activities that come in addition to teaching and research. Academics engage more often in various outreach and short-term activities than in the long-term partnership activities/projects that could integrate their academic activities and roles. Such outreach activities organized by the institution come as a request from administration or superiors, and in addition to their regular work. Academics’ perceptions and experience reveal significant differences among countries in relation to institutional acknowledgment and evaluation of community engagement ‒ from formal recognition to a serious impediment of one’s academic progress. Substantial differences by country have to be taken into consideration in every aspect analyzed. However, this analysis of 12 European countries suggests that the traditional academic activities of teaching and research are clearly in the forefront of the academics’ values and activities, leaving the service function on the margin.

Academics and Community Engagement: Comparative Perspective from Three European Countries

The aim of this chapter is to contribute to the ongoing discussion on academics’ community engagement by focusing on the nature, extent and the evaluation of academics’ community engagement in three European countries – Croatia, Germany and Ireland – and their different social, cultural, political and economic contexts. Differences in contexts can be reflected in differences in the involvement of the university with wider community. A qualitative inquiry was deemed appropriate for the research which was designed to examine the (I) the nature and extent of academics’/participants’ public engagement in the community/society with non-economic stakeholders (other than business and industry) and (II) the status of their community engagement in the frame of institutional commitment to value that kind of activities and academics’ public engagement.

Croatian Academics and University Civic Mission Integration

University civic mission is a reflection of universities as good institutional citizens that engage in their (local) communities in multiple ways – by researching and providing solutions for significant (local) problems (usually universal problems that are manifested locally, such as poverty, unequal health care, substandard housing, hunger, and inadequate, unequal education, etc.); by conducting research on democracy, civil society, and civic development; by educating students to be active and responsible citizens; by providing forums for free democratic dialogue not only for academics and students, but for (local) community members as well; and by offering its various resources and educational opportunities to the local community – to sum up by paraphrasing Benjamin Barber (1996), by being a ‘good neighbour’ that cares about and supports the improvement of (civic) life in local communities.

Early Career Women in Academia: An Exploration of Networking Perceptions

This chapter explores women’s networking perceptions by focusing on early career women in social sciences. Within an exploratory research design it asks how early career women define the early career stage in academia, what definitions, meanings and interpretations they give for networks and networking, how they construct the networking process and their ability to establish and/or join networks, as early career researchers and as women. Based on two group interviews with 12 participants, our findings show that early career women in academia favour networking with peers based on shared interests (organic networking). At the same time though, they challenge and step over the perceived gender divide, recognizing the increasing importance of strategic networking for one’s career. A balance between compliance to existing rules, i.e. networking with (male) seniors, and differentiation from traditional practices, i.e. networking with female colleagues in similar positions and challenging perceived ‘old boys clubs’ appears to be a common objective of our respondents. This shows that, while not challenging networking per se, early career women in academia are nonetheless aware of the ‘rules of the game’, which they address by enacting blended networking processes to reach both their objectives in terms of career, and their professional and personal satisfaction. A research agenda is proposed, which draws on the structure-agency nexus and calls for the broadening of the empirical sample in terms of types of respondents and of higher education institutions.