Social and Community Psychology and digital skills: building a framework for professional and academic training

Theoretical Background. Due to recent socio-cultural and technological transformations, Community Psychologists are required to engage with professional and social environments relying on digital tools and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). With reference to the academic Third Mission (TM), this requires the development of new media literacy skills and knowledge to foster the efficacy of relationships with stakeholders and of professional activities. To this aim, an understanding of the psychologists’ competency framework, their training needs, and the goals they are expected to achieve is needed. Research Aims and Methodology. Within the Participatory Action Research framework, the research-project aims to: 1) Analyze community psychologists’ competencies regarding the TM in academia; 2) Detect training needs based on the experiences of involved psychologists; 3) Identify potential training tools and methodologies to address these needs; and 4) Enhance relationships with stakeholders and improve the effectiveness of TM interventions in both community psychology projects and academia. To this aim, semi-structured interviews and international working groups were conducted, engaging professionals from different socio-cultural, professional, and institutional contexts. Thematic analysis was used. Results. The emerging themes will inform the design of a training program aimed at enhancing media skills to support psychologists in their TM and professional engagements. The research project aims to co-create formative paths for skill development and foster interactive communities of best practices. These initiatives are meant to continuously update, promoting shared knowledge and expertise among professionals. The resulting processes and outcomes aim to be scalable and replicable across various applications of community psychology and academic TM. Limitations and Implications. Despite involving a relatively small pool of participants, the research projects meets transferability criteria and provide meaningful insights for formative-training interventions and academic policies. Such future implications will be further deepened due to the intrinsic longitudinal nature of the research project.