Community engagement in higher education: from fragmented practice to core mission?

Community engagement is increasingly recognised as central to higher education’s societal role, yet it remains unevenly framed and supported in policy. This commentary argues that UNESCO’s 2026 recognition of community engagement alongside teaching and research marks an important symbolic and policy milestone. Drawing particularly on recent European policy and practice, the article traces how higher education’s societal mission has often been narrowed through economic framings of the ‘third mission’, while recent European policy initiatives have offered only partial and ambiguous recognition of community engagement. At the same time, practice is advancing rapidly: European University alliances, institutional self-reflection frameworks, transnational networks and national initiatives demonstrate that community engagement is becoming a recognisable field of practice. Drawing on examples from European alliances and selected national and regional systems, the commentary shows that policy sometimes lags behind practice, but can also begin to catch up through clearer frameworks, funding and support infrastructures. It concludes that the challenge is no longer to introduce community engagement as a new idea, but to name, connect and strengthen existing practices so that community engagement can move from fragmented activity to a coherent core mission of higher education.