Third Mission

The Third Mission is one of the institutional missions of universities, on par with education and research. It involves the transfer of scientific, technological, and cultural knowledge, to obtain social, cultural, and economic benefits.

In particular, the Third Mission activities promoted by the Department aim at spreading knowledge, theories, evaluation, and intervention methods in the areas of study fostered by the Department. Such activities involve mainly third party activities, public engagement, and lifelong learning.

> Third party activities
These activities concern the stipulation of patrimonial and non-patrimonial agreements with companies, institutions, schools and organizations.
In 2021, the Department had 59 active agreements (of which 19 signed in previous years and 45 signed in 2021), which testify to its active presence in the region.

> Lifelong learning
The concept of lifelong learning is based on the idea that the knowledge and abilities learned during the first stage of learning (school and university) is not sufficient to engage efficiently with work tasks.
Lifelong learning activities promoted by the Department include highly specialized courses (e.g., Massive Online Open Courses) and winter and summer schools.

> Public engagement
The term "Public Engagement" indicates University activities that have an educational, cultural, and developmental value for society.
The department is active in almost all of the numerous sub-categories of public engagement. In particular, among the most significant:

  • “Emergenza psicologi online - Ucraina”, a free of charge, online counseling service aimed at supporting the population after the Ukrainian emergency (see the Facebook page “Emergenza - Psicologi online Unipd” for updates);
  • Mentor-UP, a mentoring program for school-aged children;
  • Social network engagement, in particular via Facebook and Instagram;
  • The Department podcast “Fuori di testa”;
  • “Pillole di psicologia”, a series of 15-minute educational videos about theories and recent advances in psychology;
  • “Psiche mia”, a documentary film on short- and long-term psychological effects of the pandemic and on tools to deal with them.