How EPiCS Connects Citizen Science, Service Learning and the Third Mission of Universities
Introduction
Over the past few decades, the role of universities has expanded beyond their traditional focus on education and research. Increasingly, universities are expected to engage with society, foster entrepreneurship, and generate tangible impact by addressing real-world challenges. This evolving role is commonly referred to as the “Third Mission”, which encourages universities to develop and promote initiatives based on collaboration with citizens, industry, public authorities, and other relevant stakeholders (European Commission, 2007).
Building on this broader role, universities and civil society organisations have developed new initiatives, approaches, and methodologies that place engagement, collaboration, and participation at their core. These approaches aim to create lasting impact within local, regional, and national ecosystems by connecting academic knowledge with societal needs. Notable examples include citizen science, which involves citizens in the research process and the co-creation of knowledge, and service-learning, which combines academic learning with meaningful community engagement and service.
In this context, the EPiCS project brings together these three complementary concepts (the Third Mission, citizen science, and service-learning) to strengthen civic engagement and foster the co-creation of knowledge. Through targeted training activities and digital tools development, the project supports universities, citizens, and other stakeholders in working together to address societal challenges and create sustainable, long-term impact.
Deep diving in Citizen Science, Service Learning and the Third Mission
Citizen Science is an engagement method that actively involves citizens in various stages of the scientific research process (European Commission, 2025). Specifically, citizens are becoming significant contributors to data collection across countries, providing scientists and researchers with useful details and information for analysis and research. To respond to this growing phenomenon and to further strengthen the connection between citizens and the research community, the European Commission has launched the European Citizen Science platform, offering an overview of over 300 citizen science projects across the EU, which help further the collection of evidence and the impact of citizenship participation in research (European Commission, 2025).
On the other hand, Service Learning has been defined by The European Association for Service-Learning in Higher Education (2019) as “an experiential educational pedagogy in which students engage in community service, reflect critically on this experience, and learn from it personally, socially and academically.” Service-learning's expansion across Europe has been closely tied to Erasmus+ funded projects, which have supported the networks, research and institutional practices needed to embed civic responsibility and social engagement into higher education (Culcasi, et al., 2024).
Finally, the Third Mission refers to universities’ engagement with society beyond their traditional teaching and research functions, including activities related to innovation, knowledge exchange, external partnerships and responses to societal challenges (European Commission, 2025). This has also been outlined in the European Commission’s A European Strategy for Universities, which calls universities to contribute to sustainable development, innovation and social cohesion especially through engagement with external stakeholders (European Commission, 2022). Furthermore, recent EU-funded analyses summarise the European policy framework underpinning the Third Mission and provide examples of Erasmus+ projects that operationalise it, emphasising a “whole-institution” approach that aligns community interventions with learning, teaching, research and innovation (European Commission, 2025).
How EPiCS Connects the Three Concepts
Despite the differences in their role, Citizen Science, Service Learning and Third Mission share a common objective: creating positive impact in the community through engagement. These approaches move beyond a one-way model in which universities produce knowledge for communities. Instead, they emphasise dialogue, co-creation and mutual learning between higher education institutions and societal actors (European Commission, 2011). In this way, citizens, researchers and community organisations can contribute to the identification of problems, the production of knowledge and the development of solutions, that are more relevant to local needs and more likely to be sustained (European Commission, 2025).
The EPiCS project operationalises engagement across multiple levels and combines citizen science, service-learning and Third Mission by providing training and capacity building for students, researchers and educators, by developing tools and resources such as the EPiCS platform, MOOC and handbook for students and researchers, and by enabling collaborative decision-making and knowledge exchange among researchers and citizens through deliberative democracy and co-design in the context of community-engaged research.
Conclusion
Citizen Science, Service Learning and Third Mission offer complementary ways of connecting research with society. Citizen Science opens research to citizens, Service Learning connects education with community needs, and Third Mission embeds societal engagement within the university’s wider mission.
EPiCS demonstrates how these approaches can reinforce one another in practice, contributing to stronger university-community relationships and a more open, participatory and socially responsive model of higher education where knowledge is created with society, rather than simply for society.
References
Culcasi, I., Somers, K., Standaert, N., & Paz-Lourido, B. (2024). The European Association of Service-Learning in Higher Education: An analysis of its role as a catalyst for Erasmus+ projects to enhance the impact of service-learning in Europe. RIDAS: Revista Iberoamericana de Aprendizaje-Servicio, 18, 30–59. https://doi.org/10.1344/RIDAS2024.18.4
European Association for Service-Learning in Higher Education. (2019). About service-learning. https://www.easlhe.eu/service-learning/
European Commission. (2007). Improving knowledge transfer between research institutions and industry across Europe: Embracing open innovation—Implementing the Lisbon agenda (COM/2007/0182 final). EUR-Lex. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:52007DC0182
European Commission. (2011). Green paper: Fostering and measuring “Third Mission” in higher education institutions. European Commission.
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European Commission. (2021). The science of citizen science. Joint Research Centre. https://joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/jrc-news-and-updates/science-citizen-science-2021-01-12_en
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