1 Introduction

The social responsibility (SR) commitments of Higher Learning Institutions (HLIs), alongside their long-standing missions of teaching and research, have been recognized in previous studies, and the generic synergies that exist between them have been observed in HLIs worldwide (Ali et al., 2020). Scholarly discourses have considered university social responsibility (USR) as an agenda which is based on the corporate social responsibility (CSR) and as an “add-on” to the traditional missions of universities, and thus, it has been separately organized from the two previously mentioned missions of HLIs (Karlsen & Larrea, 2019). The SR that a university undertakes dictates that the university as a social organization and a social knowledge center must contribute to the improvement of the quality of the people and establish itself as a “player of social change” and “stimulator for social improvement.” In Western and Eastern contexts, USR is considered to be an integral part of university activities that affects the brand image of the university and improves substantially the students’ satisfaction, the quality of teaching and research, students’ labor market capabilities, and the ability of universities to take into account the needs of university stakeholders by adhering to ethical principles (Leoński, 2021; Phan et al., 2021).

The importance of USR also has been shown in global, regional and national crisis situations (e.g., the COVID-19 pandemic) and in post-conflict societies (e.g., post-civil war Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the atrocities therein, and Rwanda after the Genocide against Tutsi). By beginning with the former, Rojas et al. (2021) found that teachers from Chilean universities who integrated USR into their educational practices were able to promote self-care among students and the management of knowledge about the COVID-19 pandemic with powerful tools for care, protective measures, and the safeguarding of life. Singkun (2021) found that universities which developed mentalities based on SR and adopted a sense of SR on the institutional and administrative level would probably increase level of SR awareness and affect SR behavior and attitudes among its key stakeholders. Rababah et al. (2021) added that the integrated USR approach leads to the successful institutional strategic planning of activities, especially in a time of global crisis. Regarding post-conflict societies, scholars (Cyfert et al., 2021; Martínez-Valdivia et al., 2021) found that training future teachers in SR and fostering their ethical behavior and their social commitments has impacts on the “social justice” and “welfare” of citizens, and that such trainings help citizens address social, economic, health, and educational crisis situations. Thus, these authors concluded that SR should be an integral part of university trainings and it should be considered as a quality of educational performance improvement indicator and a competence tool for future teachers.

Leal Filho et al. (2019) observed that the integration of the SR into university curricula is more problematic due to a lack of awareness and the misconception that the SR is a natural agenda that can occur naturally in HLIs. Inspired by Greenwood et al. (2016), Karlsen et al. (2019) proposed two models (homogeneous and heterogeneous natures of universities) for integrating SR into university curricula. First, the integration of SR would be supported by institutional strategies as a “one size-fits all” model and would improve the functioning of the university. The weakness of this model (homogeneous) is that it assumes that all universities have the same capacity to perform their activities and contribute to regional development. In the second model, each university has its own internal complexities and sub-systems, and therefore, should develop its own approach by specifying different areas of activities to focus on (heterogeneous). Karlsen et al. (2019) concluded that unless universities combine different circumstances (homogeneous & heterogeneous), the development of socially responsible teaching and research missions has no potential. In that case, Martínez-Virto and Pérez-Eransus (2021) empirically researched three manners in which one of the public university in Navarre (Spain) contributed to the United Nations’ first Sustainable Development Goal (SDG1). First, in regard to teaching, the university introduced professional training courses on bachelor and master’s levels in the field of poverty, developed specific cross-cutting SDG1 trainings, and launched different professional networks in collaboration with stakeholders and patterners to end poverty. Second, concerning research, academics were encouraged to conduct research in line with SDG1 and play an important role in designing different governmental plans for social inclusion and zero poverty. Third, from outreach perspectives, the university established alliance networks to fight poverty in the region and to consolidate agreements with business and industry networks. It also launched an internal financial aid fund to prevent poor students from abandoning their studies. Moreover, it developed and consolidated a cross-cutting framework and mechanisms for evaluationing USR at institutional and faculty levels.

Despite the growing number of international studies in this field on a global scale, research gap and/or non-existing research phenomena still linger in African context, particularly in the Great Lakes Region of East Africa (GLREA), a post-conflict and low-income region. Our study contributes to this knowledge gap by investigating the USR best practices of GLREA universities from the perspective of socially responsible and accountable behavior. GLREA refers to country members of Great Lakes region of East Africa, also known as Communauté Économique des Pays des Grands Lacs (CEPGL), a sub-regional organization founded in 1967 to promote regional economic cooperation and a knowledge-sharing system in different sectors. Our study focuses narrowly on the three CEPGL members (Rwanda, Burundi, and DRC), which we refer to as the GLREA in our study to distinguish it from other CPGL members. Characteristically, GLREA historically existed under Belgian colonial administration for more than seven decades and is geographically located in the same circle. From the 1950s to 1990s, the regional local wars had hardly stopped; hot spots had developed one after another undermining the political economy of the region. In 2000, GLREA joined and adopted UN resolutions and SDGs dubbed “Agenda 2030,” to improve the quality of life of its people in its coined democratic program: “sustainable, universal, and ambitious development (UNESCO, 2014).” Universities became “players of social change” and “stimulators for social improvement”. However, to date, the USR practices of these universities remain undocumented.

The study main objective is to addresses the above-mentioned gap. First, a systematic review, with a time frame from 2000 to 2020 was conducted to identify studies related to the topic. Additionally, the universities’ website materials: vision and mission statements were also analysed to full understand the USR in a broad sense and complement the review.

The paper is constructed as follows: in section two, the theoretical framework of the study is discussed. In section three, the literature review discusses the vision and mission statements of universities, operationalization and the context of USR. In section four, we describe the methodology used and steps followed to reach the study sample to be analyzed. In section five, we present the major findings of the study. In section six, the major findings are discussed in comparison to the previous studies. Finally, recommendations are given, and a conclusion is drawn.

2 Theoretical Framework

HEIs today engage with diverse sectors, organizations, corporations, communities and different stakeholders in the provisions of higher education (HE) to create social and material wellbeing. They are compelled to undertake multiple roles in relationship with the wider society in addition to their traditional teaching and research. That is, the academics unit’s preference for engagement affects both the university’s internal and external community, constituencies and stakeholders’ interest in significantly favourable ways. In this sense, the universities’new models of research and knowledge dissemination occur not only internally among key stakeholders (i.e., faculty, students and parents), but also externally through intensive collaborative partnerneships and networks with other sectors, organizations and the wider society (Jongbloed et al., 2008).

In developing USR perspective, the study primarily draws on stakeholder theory, along with the Civic University Model to explore and develop a view of how HEIs reach out more to external communities, constitutencies and stakeholders. Stakeholder theory stipulates that a university is a knowledge center and must therefore be an effective institution in an increasingly wicked environment; not only is it to generate sufficient income to remain healthy enough to successfully transmit knowledge to students and research as well, but it is also equally important that it demonstrates its relevance to the wider society and the various entities within the society that it deems important (Jongbloed et al., 2008). Previous studies (Carroll, 1979, 1999) expressed that the university would be socially responsible by performing various activities including philanthropic, ethical, legal and discretionary activities to address community needs. The civic university model, particularly in post-conflict societies, overlaps stakeholder theory to explain universities’ third mission apropos social reality: Economic and entrepreneurial issues, politics and governance, social integration and socialization, social fabrics and ethics, poverty and well-being (Vázquez et al., 2013), human development, access and inequality (Vallaeys, 2011) and social capital (Putnam, 1993).

In developing this study’s views about USR, we have employed the civic university framework (Goddard et al., 2016). The latter proposes a set of purposeful activities that a university undertakes to tackle social issues. The framework is also important because it adopts holistic approaches and highlights how the university actively engages with the wider world in which it operates. Some scholarly studies (Goddard et al., 2016; Jongbloed et al., 2008) observed that the civic university framework strongly holds its “sense of place,” recognizing its unique identity and reputation granted from the locality, and it allows the university to expand its programmes, missions, and outreach services to be expressed in the wider public domains. This is done by effectively adapting innovative methodologies to invest beyond the academic circle. However, its shortcomings are exhibited in the difficulties of achieving its objectives in under-resourced societies.

3 Literatue Review Review

3.1 Universities’ Vision and Mission Statements

The University of Paris (metonymically known as Sorbonne), founded in 1150, was the first HEI to publish its statutes. In early 1930s, American universities became the first modern universities to issue vision and mission statements (VMS) that would guide university activities (Scott, 2006). They detailed objectives that guide universities to develop the country in a democratic context. Thus, they are institutional texts which guide and preserve “university-community” shared philosophy and ensure the public of the delivery of quality services. They are twin terms; the former concentrates on organizational wisdom and imaginative plans for the future, while the latter depicts concise goals, values, ethics, and organizational culture in general.

Al-Qahtani (2021) argued that the twin terms (VMS) are both powerful tools and linguistic representations that influence people’s perceptions and reinforce academic practices. Chernyavskaya and Kamshilova (2021) deployed a corpus linguistic approach to analyze how Russian universities have socially embedded visions and values in text to represent universities’ strategies to the public. The results indicated the socially constructive nature of universities and that their socially transformative role is constructed and developed within socio-cultural practices defined in their VMS. Similar emphases can be seen in research on organizational renewal in a democratic environment through organizational redesign (McBeath & Austin, 2021), with a particular emphasis on designing aspirational strategic VMS to create and strengthen a democratic working space to win organizational image and reputation.

Some Latin American research (Bedoya-Dorado et al., 2021; Ramísio et al., 2019) highlighted the importance of VMS of HEIs being aligned with sustainable development. These authors argued that the twin terms are vital strategic tools which direct institutional planning, establish work scope, determine strategic operations and purpose, create values, establish and define institutional commitments and outcomes, and help institutions focus on what truly matters to all of its stakeholders. In other contexts (i.e., the US, the UK, and Europe as a whole), scholars analyzed data collected from different websites and found that the twin terms do not only provide necessary information about a university, but also attract its key stakeholders (Ahmad & Masroor, 2020; Fantauzzi et al., 2021). Lee and Park (2021) emphasized that VMS present universities’ images and portray them as public good producers and globally competitive strategic actors. Unexpectedly, Fantauzzi et al. (2021) researched the Italian HEIs’ commitments to sustainability by analyzing their VMS, both archived and posted on their websites and found that 37% of 98 institutions stated their specific components of engagement with society, but only 3 of them mentioned their sustainability targets in their VMS.

3.2 Operationalizing and Contextualizing USR

The concept SR has been primarily found in business management and economics fields, and widespread in other fields, including education. Carroll (1999) contends that the research that discusses this concept can be traced back between the 1930s and 1940s, when both Chester Barnard’s book, “The Functions of the Executive,” and Maurice Clark’s book, “Social Control of Business” were published, which discussed the responsibilities of a business organization to society. Carroll (1999) argued that the modern form of CSR originated from the work of economist Bowen's (2013) book, “Social Responsibilities of the Businessman”. Dąbrowski et al. (2018) concluded that SR means specific obligations to improve the quality of life of the people.

The SR that a university is required to undertake is essential to improving social well-being through teaching, research, and services. Previous studies outlined university’s multidimensional responsibilities which encompass economic, philanthropic, ethical, legal, community engagement, research and development (R&D), and operational responsibilities (Latif, 2018). Those specific SR cannot be achieved individually but rather corporately. The purpose of these responsibilities is to economically improve the stakeholders’ quality of life and bring about social changes in the community at large. However, in post-conflict societies SR goes beyond economic purposes (Putnam, 1993). Corporate organizations would scientifically assign responsibilities to their stakeholders to achieve the visions and missions of the organization. In turn, the organizations would enjoy the best outcomes of their efforts, and the surrounding community would benefit from these organizational successes either through direct investment, services purchasing, or organization-community projects partnerships.

CSR was adopted by various business organizations and universities, to meet the demands of their stakeholders (Kouatli, 2019). The SR mentality was applied to higher education to break through the normal teaching and research monopoly which was argued to no longer solve all social problems (Hoyt & Hollister, 2014). Previous studies argued that the need to integrate SR into higher education curricular was because traditional university teaching has been downplayed by scientific activities which recognize solely published papers whose results, to some extent, take a longer time to be translated into public life (Miclea, 2017). However, the integration of SR into institutional operations is still problematic. In 2008, in the launch of USR in USA, the UN Secretary-General for Asia and Pacific Region observed that there is ineffective application of USR in universities and point out,

I have many awards for SR to give away. Nevertheless, sadly, I have found that every organization absolutely and completely failed to put SR into effective use. They certainly used it as public relations to promote their organizations. So, I hold these awards back until I find the right one (Sawasdikosol, 2009: p9).


Sawasdikosol (2009) argued that ineffective application of USR is partly due to the lack of consensus on the concept itself. Accordingly, Esfijani et al. (2013) suggested that USR would be understood and applied contextually from country to country, and thus pursued research on various terminologies (e.g., civic engagement, public services, community engagement, university public engagement, university-community engagement, community outreach) deemed synonymous with USR in many universities websies and reports. Apropos efforts to seek common ground in the field of USR itself and other concepts associated with USR, previous studies about practices and frameworks have proliferated. For example, 868 papers in 2013, 327 papers in 2016, and 124 papers in 2018 were published on USR topics (Kouatli, 2019). Recently, Ali et al. (2020) performed 15 reputed databases a search (e.g., Science Direct, Web of Science, Wiley Online Library etc.) targeting articles published in English on USR from 2000 to 2018, and found that 243 articles were published. Simularly, Larrán Jorge and Andrades Peña (2017) executed literature search using 15 elite journals of higher education studies and found that 314 articles were published between 2003 and 2017. However, conversely the publications and reports on USR in the African context are few (Kühn et al., 2018) let alone GLREA.

Previous studies arguably contend that USR has been naturally practiced by universities and that it is influenced by human values, imagination ability, and empathy (Giuffré et al., 2014). These characteristics are not new for African cultures. In South Africa’s Zulu language, the concept of “ubuntu” means “I am because you are,” which means that a person is a person through other people. It is commonly used to mean “common humanity,” oneness, and “you and me both”. In other “Bantu” communities, for example, in GLREA countries, ubuntu means the willingness to help, generosity, solidarity, mutual understanding, human virtues, and compassion (Spitzer, 2019). Unfortunately, the African tradition of “ubuntu” culture was undermined by the regionally violent period particularly in the year 1990s. Universities were not an exception.

Despite this, efforts to restore “ubuntu” culture, to uproot the root of ethnic conflicts, to re-unify and to reconcile GLREA societies through various government-led indigenous programs have been in place (See Table 1). For instance, the government of Rwanda initiated the long-term Vision 2020 agenda to indigenize various programs (i.e., Girinka: one cow per low-income family, Vision 2020 Umurenge Program, One Dollar Campaign) (Hahirwa & Karinganire, 2017). Community education programmes have also been established at the university of Rwanda to increase social material wellbeing of the people (Karareba & Baillie, 2019; Lo et al., 2017). Similar emphasis was also put to engage students and scholars in activities beyond classrooms such that they engage ins varous social issues: human rights, civic responsibility, health promotion and disease prevention (Plumb et al., 2013). Similarly, Burundi and the DRC established different programs such as “end food insecurity,” “livestock solidarity,” and “women promotion” programs (Republic of Burundi, 2012) in that respect. Students-led community engagement” for the fight against Ebola crisis had been conducted in many DRCongo universities (Masumbuko Claude & Hawkes, 2020). Whilst community development programs have been introduced in the faculties of social works in Burundi in early 2004 especially in the universities of Burundi and Ecole Sociale de Gitwe (Spitzer et al., 2014). Motivated by the UN SDGs, GLREA universities established social works programs at all levels to improve community engagement projects that would accelerate national development.

Table 1 Summary of programs and services in post-conflict societies
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Other researches (Karareba & Baillie, 2019; Thomson et al., 2011) have explored the frameworks for the integration of USR in the GLREA universities’ curricular. Thomson et al. (2011) compared the service-learning frameworks of universities in the United Stated (US), SouthAfrica and DRC and found that US adapted model of civic engagement (“university-community partnership” through faculty professional services, outreach services, student volunteering services, and many more extensive services), and that USR in US is a “luxury of HEIs” just to foster social democratic values. South African universities adapted a “top-down” model where organs of the government, NGOs, and community-higher education service partnership (CHESP) collaborate to initiate community service programs. While, DRC universities had no clearly defined framework to engage with the community. However, authors found that since DRC suffer from no reliable basic public services (i.e., raods, health care, starvation etc.), USR is a necessity of HEIs to eradicate poverty and educate the community about disease prevention. Karareba and Baillie (2019) used Bourdieu’s theories of fields and habitus to frame a community-based engineering education model in Rwanda and proposed three models such as developing students critical thinking, develop students’creation of alternative practices and finally the use of the appropriate pedagogy for delivering programmes for the implimentation of community-based engeering education. However, to date there is no study which explored the implementation of these models in Rwandan context.

The stunted development of USR in GLREA universities is linked with Belgian colonial legacies, particularly their attitudes towards African indigenous education. That is, Belgian-modeled universities differ from British modeled ones in term of scholarship of engagement. Accordingly, Belgian attached little importance to education of the colonized; few indigenous elites had to be educated to serve Belgian administration (Preece, 2017). Assié-Lumumba (2020) observed that the spread of slogan, “pas d’élite pas the problème” (no elite no problem) reflect Belgian colonial administration’s attitude toward African indigenous education. According to Lumumba-Kasongo (1981), this meant that without educating the colonized, there would be no possibility of harm, and no one could challenge colonial masters. Browne (2001) found that in around 1960s there were only 16 Congolese students had university degrees; only 51 students enrolled at the National University of Rwanda in 1963; while 13 000 students enrolled at Burundian universities in 1964.

Contrarily, the British modeled universities emphasized British traditions in their respective colonial territories. The university extension divisions were founded to attach great importance on the wellbeing of the community (Hussey, 1945). Moreover, the British government established various commissions in its colonial territories (ie., De La Warr Commission in East Africa (Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya in 1837, British Advisory Committee on Education in 1923, and Commission on Higher Education known as Asquith and Elliott commissions) which had to strengthen the education systems in all British colonies and to serve the wider public through effective teaching, research, and outreach services (Preece, 2017). British government also established an “Inter-University Council for Higher Education” in all colonies to link all of its African colonies’ universities with British Universities.

4 Methods

To study the development of integrating USR into GLREA universities’ activities, we employed two-step approaches. First, a systematic review (See Fig. 1) on USR related topics was conducted because of its ability to focus on the research objectives of the topic being studied. Our study followed principles of Tawfik et al. (2019), emphasizing the necessitated steps that best minimize bias in systematic reviews. Second, we visited the universities’ homepages to investigate whether USR responsibilities are mentioned in their VMS. The systematic review was conducted in a number of steps following Tawfik et al. (2019) guidelines. Firstly, the locating of the studies, study selection, and specifications; Secondly, to select literature type, search engine, timeframe, and search terms; Thirdly, the data extraction and quality assessment; and finally, the data synthesis and analysis. All of these steps are discussed in the following sections.

Fig. 1
figure 1

Systematic review flow chart. DRC Democratic Republic of Congo, RDA Rwanda, BRD Republic of Burundi

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4.1 Study Selection & Specifications

In the first step, based on GLREA universities’ internal ranking of the year 2020 (UniRank, 2020), we selected only top 30 universities (10 universities in each country), most of which are research-oriented universities (See Appendix). Afterwards, we visited universities’ website to analyze whether their publicly available VMS mentioned USR. The list of search terms (See Fig. 1) as well as the contextual synonyms of USR as identified in Esfijani et al. (2013).

In the second step, we proceeded with databases search (See Fig. 1). The timeframe criteria considered for the databases search ranged from 2000 to 2020. Only English and French written documents were considered. The databases search found the total of 93 records in all three GLREA countires. After a thorough review and the removal of abastracts with unvailable full texts (3), documents which could not be purchased (1), documents which were not in English or French (3), documents which did not mainly focus on USR (37), duplicates (32) and documents published befor year 2000 or after 2020 (7), only 10 documents were included. For reference management and administration, Mendeley Desktop program was used.

In the third step, we selected and evaluated literature based on the study objectives as suggested by Tawfik et al. (2019). The included documents were re-evaluated independently by two reviewers (one postdoc researcher and one associate professor at the authors’affiliating university. The extraction data sheets and Microsoft Access 2016 were used to compare the results before making final decisions following Moher's et al. (2009) recommendation. The information extracted from documents include authors’ name, title of the document, year of publication, specific country where study was conducted, and the major focus of USR such as economic and entrepreneurial issues, politics and governenace, social integration and socialization, poverty and wellbeing, human development, educational access and inequality as defined in our study framework. Apropos research methods, our study had no inclusion criteria for the included documents as long as they meet other criteria. A summary of key information obtained from included studies across USR thematic groups is given in Table 2.

Table 2 Summary of included studies in final review across USR thematic groups
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In the end, two authors reviewed and arranged all the included documents according to the specific country from where the studies were conducted. Of the 10 included documents, 3 were for DRC, 5 for Rwanda and 2 for Burundi. For power, strength, and reliability of results, the more included studies, the more effective the results become. However, Valentine et al. ( 2010) argued that it does matter how many studies are included to perform a systematic review, provided that those included studies would be significantly pooled and provided sufficiently similar results.

4.2 Data Synthesis & Analysis

In the fourth step, we synthesized our findings to inductively elaborate on the study conceptual model and thematic categorization focusing on the major USR in GLREA universities. Following our literature observation (Parker et al., 2020), it was not feasible to quantitatively pool the study results in this study for two important reasons. First, there was a low number of included documents. Second, there was a high level of heterogeneity between all included documents because they used different statistical analyses, methods, study population, and they operationalized USR differently. Thus, it would not be appropriate to run a meta-analysis, and, as such, a narrative approach was considered.

For data analysis, first, based on civic university framework defined earlier, particularly in the post conflict societies, five USR thematic groups (i. Economic and entrepreneurial issues; ii. Politics and governenace; iii. Social integration and socialization; iv. Poverty and wellbeing; v. Human development, educational access and inequality) that identified key USR themes for the review were used as starting points for categorizing, grouping and analysing the documents included. Second, based on the information obtained from universities’ homepages (i.e., VMS), USR was classified into four responsibility categories (See Fig. 2). These categories intends to map out the development of USR, initiatives and practices of GLREA universities, to highlight the major focus of these universities struggling to reinvigorate and to create the value of education in the post-conflict era. Both the review and websities’ investigation methods were deployed to depict how GLREA universities attached importance to the reconstruction process of these societies which were torn apart by long lasted conflicts.

Fig. 2
figure 2

Thematic categorization of GLREA universities’ USR

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5 Results

5.1 Descriptive Findings from Systematic Review

Table 2 depicts the area of focus of included studies, and at the same time expresses the challenges GLREA has been undergoing in the post-conflict era, that is, the “reconstruction” period.

By descending ranking, the findings from included studies indicated that thematic groups v, iv, iii, i & ii have been the dominant concerns to be addressed. That is, educating citizens in a democratically meaningful way, eradicating poverty and providing health care treatment, and securing social fabrics among citizens were the first prioritized. Again, due to countries’ severe ruin materially, morally and politically, the universities had to play their part to create socio-economic material wellbeing of the society and train socially and democratically responsible citizens.

5.2 Vision and Mission Statements (VMS) in GLREA Universities

VMS analysis indicated three categorical phenomena. The first category consisted of the universities which have posted their VMS and mentioned their SR commitments through those VMS. The second category consisted of the universities which posted their VMS on their websites but did not include their SR commitments. The third category consisted of universities that did not post their VMS on their websites, let alone mentioning their SR. Those that mentioned their VMS along with their specific SR commitments on their websites have been identified by double asterisks. while those that did not include their SR into VMS have no symbol of identification. Others, like the University of Burundi, which neither posted their VMS nor mentioned their SR commitments, are left blank (See Appendix).

The Burundian universities, such as the University of the Great Lakes and Ngozi University, were found to have mentioned their SR commitments and defined clearly their specific components of SR to be included in their missions. Surprisingly, the University of Burundi and the National Institute of Public Health, which top the Burundian universities ranking, did not post their VMS. The Burundian universities that did mention their VMS along with their SR commitments on their websites comprise 20% of Burundian universities selected for our study. Likewise, in DRC, it was found that few universities ran specific community service projects and mentioned their SR commitments in their VMS. Of the ten selected universities, only three have posted their VMS and defined specifically their SR commitments through VMS, following the DRC’s public service of HLIs order No. 11/105 of October 27, 2011. These universities made up of 30% of all DRC selected universities in our study.

Comparably, Rwandese universities which mentioned their VMS along with their SR commitments on their websites outnumbered that of Burundi and DRC. Of 10 universities, only 6 mentioned their VMS. However, of those 6 universities, only 4 defined specific components of their SR commitments using terms synonymous with USR (Esfijani et al., 2013). Overall, our study findings have indicated that, of the thirty selected universities, only a total of 37% have posted, mentioned, and defined specifically their SR commitments through their VMS. Figure 2 presents thematic groups of USR practices and initiatives among the selected GLREA universities. These themes were merged after conducting in-depth analsysis of VMS of the selected universities (See Table 2).

The analysis yielded four USR categories: community development responsibility, social work and disaster relief responsibility, human capital development responsibility, and environmental impact responsibility.

5.2.1 Community Development Responsibility

The study findings identified sub-categories of engagement in the context of community development responsibility: professional community services (PCS), community-based research (CBR), support for local business and consultancy, and commitments to reduce illiterate number of citizens.

Our study found that the concept community engagement has repeatedly appeared on most of GLREA universities’ websites to refer to USR toward the community. Accordingly, GLREA universities outlined their specific practices and initiatives for engaging the community. These initiatives followed Bok's (1982) argument that universities should break through their traditional teaching and research monopolies and focus on creative ways to solve economic, civic, and societal problems. Thus, the “give-and-take” collaboration between university and community was found to be emphasized among regional universities. Of the selected universities in our study, those with medicine, agriculture, and engineering programs in particular were found to have provided professional community services to address social issues. For example, the University of Rwanda’s Center for Graphical Information Systems & Remote Sensing focused on discussing the application of geospatial data to enhance food security for sustainable agricultural development. This initiative aimed to provide farmers with the necessary knowledge and skills to combat food insecurity and to develop solutions to crop monitoring, crop regionalization and land consolidation spatial decision support tools.

To support local business and offer consultancy services, the University of Rwanda (UR) established the INKINGI journal to promote quantity surveying profession in the community and provide demand-driven community and consultancy services to all consistuancies and stakeholders (Rwanda Quantity Survey Students Association, 2020). The main objective of UR was to engage in an income generating activities, promoting lucrative investment awareness. UR launched multidisciplinary, community-based, and student-centered training program known as the Integrated Community Outreach Program (ICPP), designed to develop and promote problem solving, critical thinking, and teamwork-focused instructional approaches (The University of Rwanda, 2020). In this case, various community education programs were established to assist the surrounding community, particularly the disadvantaged groups. Various CBR programs and trainings were legitimized regionally to solve particular problems. CBR capacity-building trainings were offered at institutional level, especially in the field of agricultural sciences (UR-CAVM, 2019). Moreover, various training programs were offered to consolidate social integration, promote peace, unity, and reconciliation.

5.2.2 Social Work & Disaster Management Responsibility

GLREA would not realize social integration, and sustainable peace in the region unless they engaged with the communities. Our study findings indicated the role of universities in GLREA reconstruction.

Apropos social integration, unity and reconciliation, various programs were introduced (See Table 1), with universities being important governments partners. Our findings found that Universities in Rwanda and DRC established institutes for peace and reconciliation to promote social integration and reconciliation (Université Catholique de Bukavu, 2019). The ubushingantahe (i.e., in Burundi) (which aimed to promote the truth telling, truth seeking, unity and reconciliation and train students as the future agents for social change) were emphasized; disaster management programs were established at universities level, as indicated in Table 1. The government of Burundi partnered with universities to re-unite society and bring about social changes through the traditional socialness program dubbed “Social Fabric & Ubushingantahe” and “Ubugabo burihabwa” (“We create our own dignity”) (Vimberg, 2015). The university of Great Lakes (Burundi) undertook various activities to develop a sense of responsibility among its key stakeholders. For instance, the findings indicated that Ngozi University (NU) emphasized and supported community-university research partnerships by encouraging university professors to conduct research that contributes to SDGs particularly SDG1&2. However, according to our findings, NU did not specifically outline what its community services include (http://univ-ngozi.bi/).

The Universities of Rwanda and Independent University of Kigali, likewise established respectively Solidarity and Development Foundation (SDF) and Rwigamba Balinda Foundation (RBF) to support students from low-income families. Mbujimayi University, University of Kindu, and the Catholic University of Bukavu (DRC) have been conducting unfunded faculty and student-level volunteering activities as a result. They also received donations from Non-Governmental Organizations and alumni associations to help disadvantaged groups. However, our study sample did not find whether they have legitimized extensive departments with the purpose of institutionalizing universities’ engagement with their communities (See Table 2).

5.2.3 Human Capital Development Responsibility

The findings indicated that GLREA has the lowest gross enrollment rate in tertiary education, despite its rapid growth. The traditional face-to-face teaching practices are currently accompanied by Online Digital Classes. For economically disadvantaged children who would not otherwise be able to afford the cost of education, Mass Open Online Courses (MOOC) and other E-learning education platforms were launched in the “Leave None Behind” program. Simultaneously, Short courses in relation to career guidance and employability development programs are offered as “stand-alone” courses for students who seek to enter job market.

To address human capacity challenges, GLREA partned with western countries (particularly France, UK, USA, Sweden etc.) to launch various long-term programs to deliver all kinds of capacity development trainings regardless of participant ages. Again,They train researchers in societal matters and encourage them to conduct research in cross-cutting isssues related to SDGs clusters (UNICEF, 2019; University of Rwanda, 2017). The findings also indicated that universities in partnership with governments established “Certified Continuous Professional Development” programs to train, promote, and develop knowledge capacity of local community leaders, including sector and district education officers (Uworwabayeho et al., 2020).

Apropos students support and reductions in fees, our findings indicated that all selected GLREA universities adapted different mechanisms to support disadvantaged students. The university of Rwanda, through its Solidarity and Development Foundation (UR-SDF), established channels to support its key stakeholders (Faculty & students). The UR-SDF supports afaculty and students’ community outreach activities, particularly supports students from low-income families, and addresses other faculty and student life issues to avoid students retention and faculty turnover.

5.2.4 Environmental Impact Responsibility

Apropos environmental sustainability (ES) in GLREA universities, despite efforts and commitments (i.e., integration of ES themes into schools’s curricular, integration of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) courses, annual reports on environmental protection and regulations) to integrate sustainability themes into university curricular, none of 30 selected universities in our study mentioned their ES initiatives and practices on their websites. Moreover, VMS did not indicate whether sustainability themes are crucial elements of the universities’ activities (See Appendix). However, our study findings found that commitments to intrgrating sustainability themes into university operations was depicted in the initiation of energy and water conservation programs in all GLREA universities. For instance, Eastern and Southern African countries partned with World Bank to establish 24 Centers of Excellence, of which Rwanda won four; and are currently operating at the University of Rwanda. Of the four centers, only one center namely the University of Rwanda Center of Excellence in Energy for Sustainable Development (ACE-ESD) offers a variety of programs at masters and PhD levels to train local utility managers, engineers, and researchers who would play key roles in solving energy problems (The New Times, 2020). The center also among other things promotes environmental awareness, efficient resource use, and green environmental culture. Additionally, the center benefits GlREA universities particularly in improving their teaching methods and interdisciplinary capabilities to perform research on frontier issues that face the entire region.

6 Discussion of Results

6.1 Publications and Institutional Traces

The systematic review has been a crucial method of identifying key issues, opportunities and existing gaps in literature. The study analyzed existing GLREA research on USR agenda, published before and after the creation of the World USR Alliance in 2008 (Sawasdikosol, 2009). While the VMS are indicators of USR awareness in the selected universities, both the review and universities’ homepage findings vividly highlight the major USR focus in GLREA universities particularly in the post-conflict era. As put in the civic university framework, the social issues such as social integration, social fabrics, poverty and human capital development (Darvas et al., 2017; Rieckmann, 2018) have been commonly found to be the major challenges to address. As a response attempt, the university-community partnership, among others, has been the major pathway to tackling these issues (Rieckmann, 2018; UNICEF, 2019). The MVS findings indicated the new merging challenges associated with environmental issues, which none of the included studies addressed these issues.

Our study considered the publications dated back from 2000–2020 in various academic databases (See Fig. 1) alongside the relevant institutional documents and resources available on the selected GLREA universities’ websites (i.e.,VMS) to attempt to critically document USR development status, initiatives, and practices in GLREA universities. The number of publications included in our study on USR topics (See Table 2) depicted GLREA universities’ commitments to the integration of SR themes into university curricular. The scarcity of publications and the lack of interest among regional researchers on USR topics show that the USR is worth exploring research field. The Included studies highlighted the research progress made on the cross-cutting issues on USR topics in GLREA over the past three decades, despite the scarcity of available publications on USR. Our results are consistent with previous studies that the development of societal responsiveness performance and university-community linkage among regional universities are reflected in, connected to, and influenced by the Belgian colonial legacies in GLREA, compared to the British colonial territories (Preece, 2017).

Overall, previous studies did not indicate whether there were university extension departments in the Belgian territories as they were in British territories. However, our study findings does not prove whether the African British-modeled universities have more integrated USR than Belgian-modeled universities, but rather, thefindings highlight the existing institutional traces of linking universities’ activities to the needs of society.

6.2 Vision and Mission Statements and the Space for Improvement

Apropos universities homepage materials, GLREA universities have attached importance to building socially responsible universities. For instance, GLREA joined the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), a UN global initiative which seeks to promote the implementation of SDGs through universities curricular and operations.

GLREA launched the Home Grown Solutions (HGS) forum for its universities in mid-2020 to execute new university plans to contribute to sustainable wellbeing of the people and to encourage those interested in becoming members of the network to join. The HGS is part of a series of activities of the SDSN emphasizing the role of HEIs in implementating SDGs. Accordingly, the SDSN brought together university students, researchers, and experts from business industries to showcase possible HGSs to curb the effects of COVID-19 on local communities, whilst advancing and accelerating SDGs. More importantly, SDSN received 24 proposals from various regional HEIs and NGOs to address different SDGs particularly quality education, poverty alleviation, zero hunger, good health, gender equality, and affordable and clean energy. These research proposals would work to accelerate economic growth, facilitate university-industry collaboration, promote innovative practices, build infrastructure, and promote inclusivity in GLREA and beyond (University of Rwanda, 2020).

Baxter's (2012) review on university VMS found that terms such as poverty, values, labor, market, sustainable, citizenship, responsive, entrepreneurial, community, regional, knowledge transfer, transform, leadership, technology, social, and economic and private sectors have densely appeared in Rwandan government policy documents on HEIs, indicating strong universities-government partnerships commitment. These findings are consistent with our study findings. On macro level, the findings depict the government’s provision to maximize social needs and to contextualize policy formulation for SD. On a micro level, both literature (Baxter, 2012) and our findings found that the above-mentioned terms were repeatedly mentioned in VMS of the selected universities of the study, indicating their efforts to the integration of USR into university curricular.

The findings also indicated that GLREA HEIs initiated various outreach services programs to link university activities with social needs particularly in terms of eradicating food insecurity and diseases prevention. Thomson et al. (2011) found that DRC universities did neither adapt US civic engagement model nor South African post-apartheid “top-down” model as defined earlier. These findings were also identified in GLREA where the study findings indicated that there is nospecific framework for GLREA universities to engaging their communities. Similalry, the findings also show that posting VMS and mentioning SR commitments to the public is not a widely adopted practice among GLREA universities. Finally, our study findings indicated that GLREA universities which posted, mentioned, and defined specifically their VMS count 37% of all 30 selected universities in the study. These findings are consistently found in Italian HEIs (Fantauzzi et al., 2021).

7 Recommendations and Limitations

This study critically identified four challenges facing GLREA universities in implementing USR. First, the field of USR in GLREA universities is currently not documented, despite its utmost significance to the reconstruction of social capital and social fabrics in post-conflict societies (See Table 1). Second, in relation to the first, the study found that there are no mechanisms, evaluative approaches, or incentive frameworks for promoting SR awareness and synergies in universities, thus leading to challenges in implementing socially engaged university principles and practices. Third, posting VMS and mentioning SR commitments on universities websites is not widely practiced. Again, SR commitment was also not mentioned often in the VMS in the selected universities (See Appendix). Fourth, the study indicated that colonial legacies linger in socially engaged regional universities and thus, the institutional traces are noticed. Given the above challenges, our study recommends the following countermeasures:

First, a national higher education extension division which coordinates community engagement services alongside National Framework for University Social Engagement (NFUSE) should be established to bring about synergic standards and guidelines in implementing SR. On institutional level, universities should establish an incentive framework to reward their academic units’ best practices and establish mechanisms for faculty promotion and evaluative approaches for promoting USR awareness. To achieve this, universities should choose either the “top-down” or “bottom-up” approach to carry out extension services. The established extension division/department should then be tasked to address the current disciplinary silos challenge among faculties and institutions by promoting interdisciplinary practice exchange. Community research partnerships projects should be encouraged in that case, and these projects should address the real problems from grassroots level of community to influence local and national policy change. Universities should develop and expand new funding sources for engaging the communities and encouraging private funders to understand the fact that civic engagement programs are promising investment opportunities which can potentially accelerate quality of life of the people and. In so doing, they should focus on income-generating activities through funded outreach services which would attract private and NGO funders. Moreover, universities must create a supportive environment that promote socially responsible good ethics among key stakeholders.

Second, since VMS serve as important linguistic representations for influencing people’s perceptions and developing institutional culture among university stakeholders, GLREA universities should realistically communicate publicly their intended services to maintain a strong university image, to win global market place, and remain more competitive. Third, GLREA universities should educate Africans in African contexts so that the root of colonial legacies which hinder the development of USR would be uprooted.

8 Conclusions

The study used the stakeholder theory to principally document the USR practices of universities in the post-conflict societies of GLREA. The study findings elucidate the scholarship of engagement (SE) in GLREA context and how universities engage with their communities. SE in regional context is not a luxury tool to nurture students’intelelectual inclinations about democratic values as it is in many western countries, but serves students and provides the community with necessities particularly in countries with almost no reliable basic public services (health, social fabrics, roads, etc.). That is, SE is a more necessity of HEIs than it becomes luxury in GLREA.

Concerning the review findings, of the total of 93 records, only ten were included, indicating the low number of eligible records on USR. This limits the study to support the findings with quantitative data because all eligible studies presented a significant level of heterogeinity between them. The second limitation is that this study is the first attempt to document USR in GLREA universities. The scarcity of research exploring the socially responsible universities in a regional context indicate the needs to explore and acknowledge what universities are doing to improve the quality of life of the people. Therefore, it is an opportunity for future researchers interested in topics related to USR, particularly in terms of five USR thematic groups (See Table 2) identified as the major focus of USR in the region. Again, as indicated in the study findings, empirical research can be conducted to prove whether the slow development of SE in GLREA universities is possibly a result of regional colonial legacies that still linger in order to “unveil the entanglements between the past, present and future.”

Apropos GLREA universities’ website resources, despite the role that linguistic representations and or socio-cultural practices (i.e., VMS) of universities play, they were found to be less practiced in the selected GLREA universities. That is, GLREA universities’ VMS remain unachieved. These findings are of significant reference for redesigning universities’ VMS.

Overall, a combination of efforts, for instance, the institutional strategies (homogeneous nature of universities) and the reality of the institutional sub-systems’ complexities (heterogeneous nature of universities) should be considered. Finally, if the third mission (i.e., USR) is holistically integrated and consolidated into operations of these universities, it will improve substantially the quality of teaching and research activities and simultaneously contribute to sustainable development.