Redefining the Third Pillar: An Analysis of University Missions in China, Japan, and South Korea’s National Strategies

• In Event: Aligning Institutional Strategy with International Collaboration

Proposal

Purpose of this study:
This study examines how East Asian countries—China, Japan, and South Korea—strategically reconfigure the third pillar of university mission within their national policy frameworks in response to domestic and global challenges, including intensifying global and regional competition, technological disruption, and heightened geopolitical tensions.
Despite the growing global discourse on universities’ societal roles, scholarly understanding remains constrained by Western-centric conceptualizations that often frame discussions through market-public dichotomies. These frameworks inadequately capture the distinctions of East Asian approaches, characterized by government-driven, nationally oriented initiatives with heightened political sensitivity and instrumental rationality. This study therefore examines how these three East Asian countries—each occupying unique positions in regional competition and geopolitical configurations—have expanded university missions beyond traditional teaching, research, service, and commercialization through national strategies which actively mobilize universities to address socioeconomic transformations, enhance international competitiveness, strengthen nationalism, and promote strategic interests.

Theoretical background:
The expansion of university missions beyond teaching and research toward broader societal contributions has evolved over centuries into what scholars now recognize as the third pillar of university mission (Kopelyan, 2017). This evolution traces back to the university extension movements at Oxford and Cambridge in the nineteenth century, where academics sought to broaden public access to knowledge through open lectures and educational outreach. This trajectory was further institutionalized through the U.S. land-grant movement, which deliberately integrated academic institutions with agricultural and industrial development priorities. Throughout subsequent decades, enhancing universities’ contributions to socio-economic development has remained a persistent feature of national policy agendas globally, with governments increasingly recognizing higher education institutions as key assets for addressing societal challenges (Pinheiro et al., 2015).
Later, knowledge production paradigms have shifted from discipline-bound approaches (Mode 1) toward interdisciplinary, application-focused models (Mode 2) (Godonoga & Sporn, 2023), while the Triple Helix Model conceptualized university-industry-government interdependence (Etzkowitz & Leydesdorff, 2000). Global competition, knowledge economy imperatives, and neoliberal reforms have accelerated universities’ engagement activities (Watermeyer & Lewis, 2018), with influential policy frameworks from the OECD, World Bank, and Lisbon Agenda repositioning universities as integrated institutions synthesizing education, research, industry collaboration, and community engagement (Miller et al., 2021). This evolution has progressed from the Triple Helix to Quadruple Helix (incorporating civil society) and Quintuple Helix (integrating sustainability) (Horta, 2022).
The existing literature on the third pillar of university mission remained fragmented due to the diverse terminology, including but not limited to “third mission”, “outreach”, “public engagement”, “community engagement”, “third stream activities”, “knowledge transfer”, “commercialization”, “entrepreneur universities” (Perkmann et al., 2021)—partly covers the third pillar of university missions. Universities’ roles in economic and societal development have accelerated recently, driven by technology-enabled growth, the COVID-19 pandemic, and global competition, blurring boundaries between academia and society (Engwall, 2020).
However, these scholarly discussions have largely failed to capture East Asia’s distinctive context, where governmental national strategies tightly intertwine universities’ third pillar mission with strategic responses to domestic and external challenges. In these contexts, governments systematically redesign and expand universities’ third pillar missions to achieve critical geopolitical and economic strategic objectives. This government-directed approach, which instrumentalizes higher education as a strategic asset within broader national development frameworks, represents a significant departure from Western models and remains undertheorized in existing literature.

Research design, methodology:
This study draws on a corpus of national-level policy documents from China, Japan, and South Korea (from the 1990s until now), including higher education frameworks, development plans, ministerial directives, and strategic initiatives addressing universities’ missions beyond teaching and research. Documents were sourced from official government repositories, ministry websites, and national archives in their original languages and translated as needed. A mixed-methods content analysis integrated three quantitative approaches—keyword frequency analysis, semantic network analysis, and topic modeling—with a qualitative coding process (open, axial, selective). The quantitative techniques captured broad textual patterns across policy eras, while qualitative coding organized policy statements into conceptual categories and distilled core themes.

Findings:
(preliminary findings) In East Asia, national policies have explicitly directed universities to fulfill broader functions beyond education and research. China’s “Double First-Class University Plan” and “One Belt One road” initiative mandate universities to serve as cultural ambassadors promoting national identity and Chinese values internationally. In Japan, the Center of Community program (2013) positioned universities as engines of regional revitalization, requiring academics to collaborate on applied research, industry partnerships, and community projects. The Comprehensive Strategy for Overcoming Population Decline and Vitalizing Local Economy (2014) further embedded universities in regional innovation. The Co-Creation Platform Support Program (2020) positions universities as hubs for sustainable industry-academia-government collaboration and further sustainable development. Similarly, in Korea, the Leaders in Industry-University Cooperation program (2012) targeted university-industry collaborations to improve graduate employability and regional economic development. The Program for Industrial Needs-Matched Education (2016) addressed workforce shortages and youth unemployment, embedding societal engagement into university missions. The Regional Innovation System and Education project (2023) empowers local governments to facilitate region-specific collaborations between academia and society.
These policies illustrate how East Asian governments instrumentalize universities to address national priorities in cultural preservation, regional development, demographic challenges, diplomatic strategy, and political stability—dimensions largely overlooked in Western-centric conceptualizations of university third missions.

Research limitations, implications:
This study draws primarily on national-level policy documents, limiting insights into local implementation and institutional variations. While the comparative lens highlights shared regional trends, analysis incorporating sub-national data or institutional strategies—could further examine policy translation into practice. Even so, the findings underscore how state-led directives reshape the third pillar of university mission, thereby complementing Western-centric discussions that largely focus on a public-private dichotomy and assume universities’ relative autonomy

Practical implications:
This study provides the international audience of higher education stakeholders, academics and national-/ institutional-level policy makers, with critical policy contexts for understanding the dynamic and diverse university practices in these East Asian systems.

Originality of paper:
This comparative study expands third-mission research beyond Western-focused paradigms by examining East Asia’s distinctive approach, where universities are mobilized under top-down national strategies. By integrating historical policy evolution and mixed-methods analysis, it offers fresh perspectives on how government-driven imperatives reshape universities’ missions, contributing to wider discussions on the evolving social role of higher education in a rapidly changing global landscape.

Authors

• Xin Li, Hiroshima University

• Kaixiang Kang, Prefectural University of Hiroshima