The case of Italy - Fostering the third mission at universities

Over the last decades, the ‘third mission’ activities of HEIs have attracted an increasing interest from policy makers, due to their role in boosting innovation, fostering economic growth and creating new jobs. In Italy, the commitment of comprehensive universities to third mission activities (usually conducted by the polytechnics) is relatively recent, as demonstrated by the fact that it has been officially mentioned in university legislation only at the end of the 1990s. However, the response from universities has been very favorable.