The Third Mission

The Third Mission represents a new frontier for Universities, within which they can implement their intervention: for the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies this means strengthening its capacity to produce value for collective society, acting as a driver for social-economic, cultural and technological development, through and beyond research and training, which represent the first two missions of any university. 

This involves going beyond the enhancement and transfer of knowledge, including not only public engagement and continuing education ventures, but also other activities (partnerships, placements, support to institutions, communication etc.) that can produce value for collective society, pursuing close synergy with research and training. 

In the field of technology transfer the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies is one of the best universities in Italy in terms of the ratio between patents and number of professors/researchers and, since 1990, it has generated over 70 spin-off companies which operate not only in high-tech sectors such as ICT, robotics, photonics, micro-engineering and biomedics, but also in sectors linked to the protection of the environment and financial, technological and legal advice.