Universities and knowledge transfer in the communication field. Letter

Abstract

“What is the role of universities nowadays?” is one of the questions that those of us who work there should be asking ourselves. Knowledge transfer has emerged as academia’s third mission and must drive social change and development. Specifically, this paper aims to analyze knowledge transfer’s significance in the social sciences and, more specifically, in communication sciences, by looking at the call for the six-year academic research period on knowledge transfer in 2018 and taking into account what is happening in other disciplines. The contributions of the Spanish university community in terms of knowledge transfer fall behind other countries in our field. Only approximately 1% of international patents result from Spanish research. This disparity between these two realms demonstrates the need to promote knowledge transfer as the third helix of the triple helix of an interactive and dynamic university model in communication with institutions and social agents.