Teaching, Research and the "Third Mission" are the three main university activities. UniTo has chosen to interpret the three traditional missions multidimensionally by giving value to people and to the places where they carry out their studies and work. The University intends to innovate teaching and research, through constant attention to changing needs and technology, and thus to ensure their continued high quality. UniTo also intends to be open to the public, disseminating new knowledge in the socio-cultural context, collaborating increasingly with institutions, local bodies and businesses to impact on the community socially, economically and culturally.

The University is committed to fostering quality and innovative research, identifying development potential and interaction with the socio-cultural context, supporting all sectors to encourage tangible and intangible scientific results. In the face of a socio-economic context that conceives of research as something be immediately usable and concretely applied, it must be remembered that without basic research, it is not possible to investigate reality well enough and research ends up being reduced to a mere tool. UniTo is convinced that it must support both research sectors with an immediate socio-economic impact, and sectors that make a fundamental contribution in terms of human and cultural growth and civil coexistence. In order to achieve this goal, the University needs to attract more funding from competitive calls for proposals at national and European level and to increase opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration between colleagues and with all the players who can financially support research. The aim is therefore to strengthen the research incentive system, also by supporting local research that is not funded through external calls for proposals, but which represents the backbone of research at the University, and by attracting/supporting participants in highly qualified projects at an international level. UniTo also intends to act as a research incubator supporting younger people. This is why it pays particular attention to enhancing the PhD programme, for which UniTo aims to increase the interdisciplinary nature of the courses, the level of internationalisation and interaction with businesses and non-academic bodies operating in the world of work. In order to enhance the scientific production and public engagement through an innovative tool, UniTo intends to create a UniTo Research Space that fosters the products of research and "third mission" activities, and to attract research funds, through a single integrated, up to date dashboard.