Analyzing and subliming the forms of university social responsibility

This article attempts to identify models, including the conceptual ones related to social responsibility of universities through the meta-analysis of researches conducted in this field in Iran, and then, by showing the shortcomings of these models, on the one hand, the fundamental principles governing any form of conceptual formulation and on the other, alternative forms should be introduced that can realize the socially responsible university. This article focuses on the researches that were published in the last decade. In the first step, it tried to identify patterns based on the researches under review. Then, with a critical analysis, it was shown why it is necessary to go beyond the existing studies and think of alternative forms that can better formulate the responsibility of the university. In this research, three main forms of university, service-oriented (which itself is divided into two i.e. mission-oriented and citizen universities), and social university were identified based on the existing approaches in the study environment. These three forms were critically analyzed, so that the fourth form, i.e. ecological university could be introduced as a more socially-responsible alternative. Implicitly, we tried to show that the models and approaches have a fundamental role in shaping the research orientation, and thus the necessity of presenting alternative models because they create new theoretical and research possibilities. This research showed that without an ontological understanding, any form of social responsibility of the university can reduce aspects of the university in favor of preferred aspect (market or government); something that can be seen especially in Iranian academic researches on the social responsibility of the university. It is suggested that more attention needed to the ecological university as a specific alternative that Ronald Barnett had started to formulate.