5th ISA Forum of Sociology (6-11 July 2025)

Research and teaching have been the traditional missions of higher education. During the last decades, a third mission, the expectation of a knowledge transfer to society has become basically universal. This affects not only academic research, but also teaching. Higher education students acquire rather abstract explicit knowledge. At the same time, companies and public administration expect study programs to become more practice oriented. Professions are assumed to use their academic knowledge for the definition and solution of practical problems when they enter the labour market.

In transdisciplinary settings, the transfer of knowledge between research and practice requires corresponding practical skills, both, among academicians and practitioners. Academicians have to take practical problems seriously and be prepared to interact with practitioners at eye level. For practitioners, the acquisition and use of explicit academic knowledge also requires practical skills that are usually developed during a study career. On the job, these skills can be stabilized through cooperation of practitioners with academicians and through participation in lifelong learning.

How do higher education institutions address the third mission in their study programs? How do they position themselves in their study programmes concerning the development of explicit knowledge about the supposed gap between research and practice? How do they strive to allow for the development of practical skills for overcoming the supposed gap between research and teaching? How do graduates evaluate the acquisition of practical transfer skills?

We invite conceptual and empirical contributions that address one of these or related questions.