CONTEXT Universities are embedded within local communities of business companies, NGOs, local associations, cities and other stakeholders, and do not operate in isolation. University’s Social Responsibility (USR) was – as a concept – derived from Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and is about managing these relationships to produce an overall positive impact on society with research, development and higher education. Universities must seek to strengthen their public commitment to the city they are located in, the local economy and to the wider society through their research and higher education activities in order to have a real impact on their local communities and to improve the relevance of higher education in society. To date this potential and impact of universities on local communities is to a large extent unexploited. OBJECTIVES Therefore the UNIBILITY-project (“university meets social responsibility”) aims at strengthening the relationships of universities with their local communities through USR-activities. Specifically the project will develop strategies how universities can increase their social responsibility actively on student and researcher level, it will develop and implement USR service learning projects impacting the local community in the area of environmental, social or economic research, and will develop a USR Curriculum and train university management and students with it. Also learning networks between HE and local business partners will be created. PARTICIPANTS The UNIBILITY-project aims at working with participants of higher education on the one hand (university managers, researchers, students) and with local communities (local business partners, local NGOs, cities) on the other hand. ACTIVITIES The UNIBILITY-project will produce different intellectual outputs in four phases: - STOCKTAKING PHASE: In the first phase a reader on USR as a training material is produced, and an interactive USR Toolkit with collected ideas how to actively connect universities with their local communities. - TRAINING PHASE: In the training phase university management and students are trained in USR, using the developed training material (curriculum and material). - IMPLEMENTATION PHASE: Then project partners, students and researchers will actively implement USR activities to benefit the local communities based on the trainings which were held before. In each country two service learning projects take place, are documented interactively. Also, active cooperation with business partners and NGOs in workshop series are initiated (5 per country). - ROLL-OUT PHASE: In the roll-out phase a guideline for USR is written, which is disseminated at an international multiplier event in Spain. RESULTS AND IMPACT The UNIBILITY-project will contribute to improving relevance of HE in society, active cooperation between universities and the non-academic world, to help cities reach their full potential in terms of creating wealth, jobs and innovative solutions to the many challenges facing Europe until 2020, to forging corporate partnerships and universities' connection to business. On participant level it will contribute to reducing isolation of researchers and to increasing employability of students. USR requires engagement between universities and external stakeholders so that universities can act as a driver for the development of new markets and create real opportunities for growth.