As missões da Universidade, entre as quais a extensão universitária ou a terceira missão, em face dos desafios da mercadização/mercantilização

Abstract

This text aims at discussing the concept of the university's third mission starting from the concept of university extension in these times of marketization and commodification of this level of our educational system. In other words, rather than to discuss the different meanings of university extension in Brazil, its current practice in the context of higher education institutions (IES) - universities or not - and, especially, to seek to question and/or define the “new role” of the university, which is being identified as its “third mission”, the paper aims to problematize the relationship between the very recent phenomenon of marketization/commodification and university extension or “third mission”. Ultimately, the paper tries to answer this question: what are the challenges that marketization/commodification poses to higher education missions, especially university extension or its “third mission”?