The Third Mission of Central-Eastern European Regional Universities: Two Cases from Romania and Hungary

The presented research investigates the case of non-metropolitan, regional universities in Central-Eastern Europe to understand how their third mission strategy and practice contribute to the societal development of their localities. It intends to fill a gap in related contemporary research, which usually neglects such universities in this part of the EHEA. The investigation is built on a comparative case study design with non-random, purposive sampling on the cases of Universitatea Transylvania din Braşov (UTBv) in Braşov, Romania, and Dunaújvárosi Egyetem (DUE) in Dunaújváros, Hungary, and employs a mixed methodology of the convergent parallel design (parallel databases). The paper presents an outline of a doctoral research plan with an overview of its preliminary results, the author’s related publications, the present state of the research, and its possible future directions.