The paper contains a mean square estimate \(\underset{T-H}{\overset{T+H}{\int }}{\left|L\left(\lambda ,\alpha ,\sigma +\text{i}t\right)\right|}^{2}\text{d}t{\ll }_{\lambda ,\alpha ,\sigma }H\) for the Lerch zeta-function L(λ, α, s) with fixed parameters λ, α ∈ (0, 1], 1/2 < σ ≤ 7/12, and T27/82 ≤ H ≤ Tσ. The estimate is uniform in H. The result extends the mean square estimates for the Hurwitz and Riemann zeta-functions. The obtained bound is applied for universality theorems in short intervals for the function L(λ, α, s).