Converting university knowledge into value: how conceptual frameworks contribute to the understanding of the third mission role of European universities

The importance of universities in the movement of western economies from industrial to knowledge-driven economies is increasingly recognised, there has been a greater focus by policy makers and academics on the university's role. Resultantly, a number of conceptual frameworks have been created to capture this changing role, however, there remains a lack of clarity as to how the modern university engages a set of external stakeholders, resulting in a 'tangling' of conceptual frameworks explaining this 'third mission' paradigm. This article untangles these third mission concepts highlighting four areas of variance: the focus on public versus private good, the relation to university-business cooperation and entrepreneurship, the relation to theory and the stakeholder perspective taken by the frameworks. In doing so, it provides insight into how universities interact externally to convert their knowledge into value and make a case for a proactive approach to the third mission by university managers.