La tercera misión de la universidad: La interacción directa con la sociedad civil y de educación para la ciudadanía (The third Mission of the University: Direct Interaction with civil society and citizenship Education)

What is the role and capacity of higher education institutions to affect the education of citizens? To reflect on the issue and develop a joint research between CEPES (University of Havana) and Sapienza (University of Rome) has developed a research project to share tools, ideas for research, and the exchange of documentation and studies on the subject. Starting from the concept of "Social Responsibility of the University" developed by CEPES, has been investigated, in the context of Italian, the role and function of the university from its "Third Mission", that is to say the direct provision of resources' academic institution for the benefit of part or the whole community, as well as the university itself. There are three areas of development of the Third Mission: the Technology Transfer / Technological Transfer and Innovation - TTI; Continuing Education / Continuing Education - EC; Social Commitment / Social Engagement - SE. The contribution will focus on the last two, presenting some of the results obtained using the questionnaire agreed between the two universities, translated and adapted to different contexts. The analysis of the point of view of teachers and students on how the university contributes to citizenship education, is the starting point to explore the forms of expression of the role and responsibility of the university in social commitment.