How Can Universities Engage with Society? Searching for a New Approach to Universities' Third Mission in Iran

There is a widespread consensus regarding the role and function of the universities in society concerning the ways of their response to economic and social challenges and fostering intellectual, productive and engaged citizens in participation through the third mission; however, it seems that there is not a single agreed upon definition and clear picture of the concept of academic engagement and the third mission of the university. Using an analytical review method, this article with a critical perspective, examines five approaches of university engagement with society, namely: knowledge factory, interaction with industry, technological entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship, sustainability approach and systemic interaction. These approaches were compared based on nine factors, including: philosophy, goals, orientation, beneficiaries, influencing factors, political Context, innovation approach, time framework and communication channels. The purpose of this process was: to clarify the differences existing among the five approaches to the university engagement with society; to provide a broad perspective of university engagement and understand the nature and characteristic features of the appropriate approaches to the third mission in universities based on the Iranian environmental/contextual situation. The results indicated that the third mission of the university is an evolving mission that differs from its conventional definition and economic focus and technology transfer methods. Choosing the appropriate approach of interaction in a given university is a complex issue, which requires solving this complexity and obtaining a clear picture of the university's interaction with society that depends on clarifying five complicated issues of: the intention or purpose of the interaction, understanding or imagining the interaction, historical development of the university ,the organizational structure of the university and the meaning of interaction from the perspective of stakeholders