A text-mining analysis of Latin America Universities' mission statements from a 'Third Mission' perspective

Abstract

[EN] University Mission Statements (UMS) were born by imitating a common practice in the business world, where private organisations state their core values and main purposes. Recently, there has been growing interest in analysing UMS through the lens of the Third Mission (TM) of universities. Despite the increasing attention to UMS analysis of TM at the national level, there remains a dearth of research that conducts international comparisons of UMS across various countries utilizing a TM perspective. In this study, we adopt a text mining approach commonly employed in Natural Language Processing studies to categorize 1304 UMS from 19 Latin American countries based on generalized social and economic orientations of TM. By eschewing classifications reliant on specific TM aspects and activities, our analysis aims to facilitate meaningful regional and cross-country comparisons. On average, the orientation of UMS from Latin American countries is 82% social and 55% economic, significant variations observed across countries reflecting the particularities of each Higher Education System. Our results are comparable to previous research analysing single-country UMS, utilizing interpretive content analysis and a Third Mission lens. This evidence offers a quantitative perspective that aligns with existing regional narratives, enriching our understanding of the Third Mission across Latin America.