On a third mission: aligning an entrepreneurial University’s mission, strategy and strategic actions to a language centre context

Traditionally Universities have been charged with a mission that is twofold: to teach and to conduct research. However, there is an increasing interest in and focus on a third component of their mission, i.e. to become an entrepreneurial university. Depending on the discipline and field of inquiry, this focus raises different questions for the various areas of academia. For the purposes of this study, I explore what this means from the perspective of the Center for Languages and Communication studies (thereafter referred to as CeLCS), located as an independent unit within a University which states ‘we are an entrepreneurial university’. However, several important questions emerge e.g., what exactly is an entrepreneurial university? Why is it important to become an entrepreneurial university? How can a language centre develop and contribute to this mission? How do the teachers conceptualize an entrepreneurial university, especially in terms of competencies, commitment and participation? Drawing on a higher education literature review of the entrepreneurial university I first explore how the phenomena is understood. Following that, I report on and discuss the results of a survey which attempted to gauge how the entrepreneurial university and third mission is conceptualized and could be made actionable within the CeLCS context, including the role of the entrepreneurial university within the language center, and the potential it has to raise the CeLCS profile in the local community. This study provides CeLCS with an opportunity to advance their knowledge and associated strategic actions in order to develop a future research agenda for the unit and contribute to the third mission of Turku University.