Third mission and (versus) university community engagement (UCE): UCE as a university practice for spatial justice and sustainability

Abstract

Today, we live in a world of serious environmental and social problems, and the academic world must play its part in solving them. One of the means of contributing to the solution is the practical implementation of the concept of university community engagement (UCE). This concept is about universities working (collaborating) with non-university actors(stakeholders) (implementing joint activities) in a way that is mutually beneficial to all parties, albeit in different ways, and that enriches (from a university perspective) the core activities of universities. For UCE, external university linkages are a means to fight social exclusion and injustice; to empower marginalized and peripheral groups in society; and to support global responsibility and environmental (sustainability) initiatives.

As a consequence of the above, UCE necessarily has spatial implications, since spatiality is a determining factor in environmental and social processes. Nevertheless, the spatial implications of UCE are not/rarely explicitly analyzed in the UCE literature. Likewise, the concept of UCE and the potential and actual role of UCE as a set of practical activities in the contribution of universities to social justice and sustainability, as well as the analysis of the spatial aspects of this contribution, are virtually absent from the Hungarian and international literature of regional research. Exceptions to this are (1) some studies in the critical geography literature that recommend the use of certain UCE tools for critical geography; and (2) an analysis of the applicability of certain UCE tools in geography education and spatial research.

This gap in the literature is even more striking (and controversial) if we consider that the concept of the third mission, which is in some ways related to UCE in its cooperative and practical orientation, but also different from it in terms of its objectives and social impact, has been the subject of substantial academic analysis within regional research.

In response to this gap in the literature, this paper attempts to situate the concept of UCE in the context of regional research. My conclusion is that the UCE as a set of activities is on one hand related to the third mission concept in its practical (cooperative, action-oriented) orientation. On the other hand, UCE is also radically different from the third mission because of its transformative social and sustainability orientation, being antagonistic to third mission objectives according to certain sustainability theories. As such, within regional research, UCE is (1) thematically most closely related to issues of spatial justice, environmental justice and regional sustainability; and (2) methodologically/approach-wise directly related to critical geography.