Assessing the Impact of European University Alliances: The Case of UNITA

The assessment of social impact generated by universities and researchers is increasingly becoming a pressing and expanding need within the academic community. This is aimed at enhancing transparency for all university stakeholders and documenting higher education’s contribution to societal sustainable development. Simultaneously, it is recognized as a quality component in projects, such as those funded by the European Union. This chapter contributes to the practice of social impact assessments in the case of European University alliances, a brand-new organisational setting promoted by the European Commission in recent years. The chapter outlines a method to assess social impact and validates this through the example of the “UNITA Universitas Montium” alliance. This chapter goes through this six-universities consortium aimed at breaking down traditional barriers for inter-organisational cooperation. The presented assessment method is built upon the application of the Theory of Change and the Impact Pathways logic, defning the alliance’s boundaries. After an explanation based on the literature review of social impact assessment of universities’ activities, this study explains the method itself and the process for its implementation. The method is based on the development of output, outcome, and impact indicators that are subsequently validated by selected stakeholders, before the fnal testing. Given UNITA’s vast spectrum of activities, the present method can be easily adapted to and adopted by other European University alliances, and potentially beyond.