Determining Educational Needs of Educational and Research Centers of Excellence: Road Map of Scientific and Educational Centers of Excellence in Medical Sciences

According to the compilation and approval of the strategic map of the country’s centers of excellence in 2011, Achieving the prospect of this program, require empowerment of senior managers of centers of excellence. The aim of this study was to compile educational package of empowering medical sciences in centers of excellence to help establishment of comprehensive scientific map of the country and the fifth development plan.
This qualitative study was conducted in four stages. In the first stage, 30 of the Iran’s medical centers of excellence managers were selected purposefully and an unstructured interview was conducted to determine necessary capabilities for better management of scientific poles in order to achiev e aims of road map of the scientific poles. The interviews were analyzed by the content analysis method. In the next step, the technical committee was formed with the participation of stakeholders and related experts and the educational text was prepared for each capability. According to educational package, workshop was held in two days. The course was evaluated with pretest and post test.
The list of capabilities needed to manage scientific centers of excellence was divided into four sub-categories: stewardship, human resources, financial r esources a nd s ervice delivery. E ducational priorities extracted f rom t his list include: management skills in centers, management of change, strategic and operational planning of the pole, program deployment, knowledge translation, social accountability, financial resources, research process, ideal management, wealth generation and innovation process. In the evaluation, more than 50% was added to the information of the participants.
The held course was successful in the first step from the viewpoint of creating opportunity to review educational needs and creating sensitivity to internal empowerment in centers of excellence. For institutionalization the provided trainings, most important steps include: increase the sensitivity to the more active presence of centers of excellence in society and policy, stronger support of the high council of center of excellence and heads of universities, holding periodic tours to present the successful experiences of the centers of excellence, the selection of consultants for each center of excellence and providing training and advice over time, having an empowerment and updating program for centers of excellence.