On 16 March 2022, the partners of the IMPALA project met to finalize the evaluation of the 3rd mission of the Latin American universities. This event completed a process that started 18 months ago and concluded with the publication of 11 institutional reports, one for each Latin American institution of the consortium.
Based on the 3rd mission’s typologies from the Impact Assessment Framework, each coordinator consulted with the university managers in charge of these activities and completed a summary note with information on their development status, financing and results. This long, 10 months process, allowed the coordinators to identify numerous activities managed locally by professors or university managers but not yet compiled by the extension services. It also enabled to classify the activities by their effects on the beneficiaries of the institution’s socio-economic environment, and their benefits for the institution. In accordance with the university’s situation analysis, coordinators identified possible development axes and good practices for the strengthening in the 3rd mission in their institutions.
As coordinator of the project IMPALA and responsible for these activities, EFMD accompanied the partners throughout the process. 42 mentoring sessions took place in which theoretical concepts of management education were presented, as well as good practices from quality assurance and accreditation. European partners supported EFMD with this task sharing their expertise in managing their 3rd mission, in particular Universidade do Porto, Universitat Ramon Llull– ESADE and Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore.
Each coordinator will present the results of the reports to their top management (academic council or university’s extension department). This will support the redefinition of the 3rd mission strategies in the institution. EFMD will coordinate the publication of the book “Best practices in impact assessment in HEIs” with the aim of facilitating the replication of this initiative in other institutions in the region. The book will be presented during the project’s final conference in Havana in October-November 2022.
