University of Porto, 17 October 2011

There is an increasing recognition worldwide of the role that universities can play in economic growth and social development. University activities are often understood as: teaching and research. However, more recently, policy-makers have highlighted other types of contributions of universities to society called third mission. The draft proposal of the project E3M was intended to find indicators that could be used to assess the third mission. Three dimensions of third mission were defined: technology transfer, lifelong learning and social engagement. These indicators were found after the joint work of the partnership, then these were analysed by about twenty experts using the Delphi method and have been tested with case studies in six universities.

The interim results, particularly in the area of social engagement, were presented during the seminar so as to discuss the indicators and their use