New economic strategies in universities from the social accountability perspective.

Abstract

With the full implementation of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), the benchmarking context of Spanish universities is not longer within its national frontiers or the EU-27 frontiers but is extended to forty eight European countries and more than four thousand higher education institutions. For this reason, Spanish universities should open their horizons promoting the development of new strategies to face the internationalization and seeking for new sources of financing. The idea is to develop a favorable environment (academic, scientific, entrepreneurial & innovative) in order to get a higher international visibility as well as a higher impact on the social and economic spheres. Therefore, Spanish universities have to deal with two key challenges: the diversification and search of new sources of financing - specifically by fundraising from people, institutions, alumni, organizations and foundations sharing the mission and strategic objectives - and the notion of social accountability of the University itself. In this context, higher education institutions have to respond before a wider group of stakeholders, not only in teaching and research but also in the so-called "third mission" (social accountability). For this reason, they have to make strategic choices on activities and projected functions in order to obtain the intended quality level. Key words: Spanish universities, fundraising, financing, university social accountability.