The “third mission” of a university is its broader mission to influence society through organizing network interactions with various interest groups, providing university platforms for discussions and events that can open up new meanings for participants, relevant to their corporate strategies. A university as a communicative center for societal development—in this aspect, the third mission of the university is extremely relevant today, and particularly for the EHU. This relevance is due to the fact that communication difficulties prevent various actors from effectively consolidating their efforts and resources, leading to dispute and centrifugal processes in communities that are strategically important for transformation of Belarus and the region. Periods of historical fractures, as a rule, require a fairly concentrated production of new discourses—and this is especially evident today, in the region of Eastern Europe, in the post-Soviet countries, where processes of dehumanization are so rapid that a full-scale deadly war has been going on for the third year, millions of Ukrainians, Belarusians, and residents of other countries have been forced to leave their homes and seek a safe place to live, and Western civilization and European democracy are facing an existential threat. Such a level of acute political and social crisis in the region forces various actors to make great efforts to find new ways to respond to the situation. Outdated attitudes are constantly circulating in the media discourse, gradually “fading” in perception and ceasing to create the necessary sociodynamics for positive changes, moving into the mode of communicative “noise”. New discourses capable of stimulating some “salvific” productive “branches” from the strategic “mainstream” are not born in sufficient quantity. Their creation or even production is not an easy task, as it requires a fairly high concentration of intellectual and volitional efforts of various social groups. What can be the point or place of such concentration? What should be the content of this concentration and who should generate it? According to the apt expression of Wilhelm von Humboldt, the university is characterized by the production of new, unpredictable questions and problems. Unpredictable is a word that, against the background of total frustration in society, can cause, rather, a negative reaction today.
At the same time, replacing it, for example, with the word “unobvious”, we open up the horizon that allows us to consider the third mission of the university in volume: it is a place of searching for (and discovering) the unobvious and it is a place of producing such a search. In addition to research work, such a search can and should cover a whole range of social interactions between large and small groups, which can include local communities, business, government and diplomatic structures, academic institutions and civil society organizations, and many others. At the same time, the university can and should be a place for the transfer of advanced knowledge and innovations to those stakeholders who form the demand for this knowledge. In this regard, university laboratories and research centers should also be considered as places of knowledge transfer – Knowledge transfer offices – possessing not only academic potential, but also a built-in infrastructure for strategic and operational communication and stakeholder management. In other words, each such laboratory, establishing direct links with its stakeholders, also works as a two-way channel for information exchange – receiving requests from stakeholders and problematizing exactly what is a priority today, and transmitting new knowledge to stakeholders that is strategically important for the successful implementation of corporate strategies.
In fact, such a model of activity is demonstrated by some expert centers created at the EHU, however, their activity until recently was not considered strategically – as a single ecosystem of the university’s integration into social processes, the life of civil society and the creation of new values as the basis for interaction with stakeholders.
Science Shop for Public Organizations In 2021, the OSUN Science Shop project was launched at the EHU. Its feature is a direct connection between teachers and students with public organizations that offer requests for joint project activities in relevant areas of social development. The main tasks of the OSUN Science Shop include studying the activities of local civil society organizations, supporting and developing the practices of experimental learning, socially inclusive learning, developing local communities, involving civil communities, citizen science and conducting joint research. If in the 2021/2022 academic year, 6 projects were implemented within the framework of the OSUN Science Shop at the EHU, then in 2023/2024 – already 16, the pace of development remains high in 2024/2025 as well. The project is being implemented simultaneously in Austria, Bangladesh, Belarus, Hungary, Kyrgyzstan, and Lithuania and actually ensures the direct participation of universities in the life and development of civil society.
Ludmila Ulyashina, Doctor of Social Sciences, Associate Professor, Chairman of the EHU Senate and Head of the Center for Constitutionalism and Human Rights: “The centers and laboratories of the EHU, as well as individual teachers, have always been open to the requests of civil society organizations, primarily Belarusian ones, especially since many of their members are our graduates. However, today, when civil society in Belarus has been facing brutal repression and its consequences for more than four years, the university is obliged to adapt its activities in terms of risks to the educational process and its participants. We understand that the main result for society is our graduates who have mastered knowledge and humanitarian European values. We strive for a better understanding and productive coordination of our resources – intellectual, financial, and emotional – to contribute to the effective solution of the complex humanitarian crisis in the region. The way to this lies through a systematic approach to implementing the Third Mission of the university.”
The implementation of the third mission for the EHU means strengthening the positive sustainable influence of the university through the realization of human potential through education both on the country of origin – Belarus, its civil society, and on other countries in the region, whose students are increasingly joining the EHU community – Lithuania, Ukraine, Russia, etc. This will lead to the development of new forms of interaction that actually influence society, promoting social progress through the personal development of our students. We want their learning to occur not in isolation from reality, to include interaction with civil society, business, and science in the countries of the region, with the creation of fundamentally new and highly relevant centers of knowledge transfer today.
The third mission of the university today needs more precise formulation and detailing, which will be the subject of a specialized conference “The Third Mission of the EHU”, which will be held on November 8-9 in a hybrid format and will bring together representatives of the academic community of the EHU, as well as universities in Lithuania and neighboring countries, students and graduates of the EHU, representatives of civil society in Belarus and Lithuania, members of human rights organizations and initiatives in the countries of the region.
The key areas of EHU influence within the framework of the implementation of the third mission are the development of a free and open academic environment, critical thinking, independent learning, and effective communication. Through the third mission, innovative and effective approaches should be found to integrate applied skills into the university’s curricula, implement student initiatives, and strengthen ties with civil society in Belarus, Lithuania, and the countries of the region.
These areas can be refined and expanded through productive dialogue with stakeholders, which is the main expected result of the conference. The third mission of the EHU, formulated and detailed thanks to such a dialogue, will become a beacon for those changes that will strengthen and expand the university’s influence on the life of the entire region, fill the arteries of communication with stakeholders with fresh blood, and allow the university to be sustainable in new complex conditions.
Today, the EHU faces unprecedented challenges, and the 20-year experience of a unique university in exile, combined with active dialogue with partners, is able to form a unique model of an influential and sustainable regional university of a new type, which could combine the role of a forum for academic freedom and European values and a laboratory for the production of new knowledge necessary for civil society. The subject of this dialogue can be every employee and student of the university.