Sapienza is committed to promoting, facilitating and sharing knowledge, expertise and technologies beyond its own institutions. To this end, it engages with other organisations, the business community and society as a whole. For Sapienza, enhancing knowledge (Terza Missione/Social Impact) is an institutional responsibility towards society, the community, and the local area more generally, as well as the national and international contexts.

At Sapienza, the Terza Missione (Outreach) is organised into two main areas of equal weight and importance to the university, both in terms of governance and supporting administrative services.

1) Promotion of research: management of intellectual and industrial property, academic entrepreneurship, and structures for technology intermediation and transfer.
2) Production of public goods: public engagement, management and promotion of artistic and cultural heritage, protection of public health and well-being, with particular attention to cultural activities of public utility, scientific dissemination, citizen involvement in research, and constant interaction with third sector organisations and the world of education.

Sapienza subsequently defined a Fourth institutional mission, providing a tangible representation of its commitment to the principle of equity as a foundation of university organisation. Ensuring equal social dignity, equal access to education, and equal opportunities for individual development for all, regardless of background, is one of the most complex and ambitious objectives that universities are tasked with achieving. It is also the effective implementation of Article 3 of the Constitution.

This Fourth mission is not separate from the previous three, but rather cross-cutting, committing Sapienza to strengthening the causal link between growth and inclusion, fighting inequality, and promoting diversity.