فصلنامه مطالعات میان رشته ای در علوم انسانی
سال چهاردهم شماره 3 (پیاپی 55، تابستان 1401)

Much has been written about the future of universities. One can safely assume that experts will continue to present their views concerning this important issue in a bid to inform and enlighten policymakers as well as the public. In this paper, we try to deal with some aspects of the future of universities not much discussed by other researchers. Following a brief introduction to one of the important issues related to the higher education systems, i.e., the issue of conceptual changes, developments in the social and cultural contexts, and technological advances all in relation to higher education, we turn our attention to the problem of the decline of current models of university. We next discuss the impact of emergent (NBIC) technologies on the modes of teaching in future. In the last section we provide our own account of the future of the university in Iran and highlight some of the conditions necessary for its realization.

The movement from intra-disciplinary toward inter-disciplinary approaches by focusing on real-world problems is a growing trend in higher education. Thus, next generation universities will move toward inter-disciplinary discourses. In the meantime, systematic studies of futures or futures studies have also been considered by academics in various fields. In this qualitative meta-synthesis, an attempt is made to investigate the status of future-oriented studies in various disciplines in order to map the distribution these studies. Through a rigorous selection process, 737 articles were chosen and categorized into 19 main categories and 350 secondary categories which were correspondingly classified under more detailed sub-categories. The results indicate that geographical planning, security, and corporate foresight have had the highest application of futures studies. By contrast, sports, women’s studies and futures of professions had the lowest number of articles.  This paper highlights the conspicuous gaps in future-oriented interdisciplinary researches along with their strength and weaknesses.

With the growing complexity of current and future world issues, the interconnectedness and, interdependence of thematic areas has become one of the shared norms and practices today. This also has led to the development of interdisciplinary studies in scientific and technological institutions and has become one of the universal trends of policy-making in science, technology and, innovation domains. Climate change, environmental pollution, the steady increase in longevity and aging of societies, global poverty, international financial crises, global diseases, terrorism, addiction and injustice are some of the topics whose foresight is beyond the power of individual and requires thinking, dialogue and cooperation in different specialized fields. The main question is: Which future scenarios can lead to the development of interdisciplinary studies in Iran’s medical universities? Documentary studies, expert panels and brainstorming are some of the methods applied in this research. The findings include: first, interdisciplinary knowledge is identified in response to complex social issues rooted in the present and the future; second, the development of interdisciplinarity in medical sciences requires a process of simultaneous top-down and bottom-up development; third, building a preferable future for the development of interdisciplinary knowledge in Iran's medical sciences involves attention to the facts that shape the subject at different levels from objective to subjective, and, therefore, a range of short-term to long-term approaches, plans and actions to build objectivity and related mindsets.

The purpose of this study is to identify and determine key factors, emerging trends and driving forces in the development of future faculty promotion regulations (FPR) and evaluate the structural relationship between key factors over the Horizon 2035. For this purpose, relying on a mixed methodology and using the literature review, interviews, the cross-impact analysis matrix, MicMac software and expert panels, key factors are identified and the relationship of influence and dependence between them are structurally analyzed. As a result, five forces including "Discourse governing higher education in Iran", "Society (industry, market and government) expectation of higher education", "Economics of higher education", "Competitiveness and internationalization of higher education" and "Emerging challenges and development of Interdisciplinary sciences" are considered as drivers of change in the subject of research and the function and influence of each in the future of the faculty promotion system is explained. Accordingly, upgrading future editions of FPR requires alignment with the identified drivers, considering structural complexities between key factors and adapting to changes in the social, economic and political environment through interdisciplinary and futuristic approaches.

Sports science and future studies have both emerged as an interdisciplinary field in the world. Interdisciplinary studies is one of the areas that has grown in parallel with these two, and have had a tangible and fundamental impact on them and have been influenced by them. Interdisciplinary research is very important, especially in the field of sports, which has ambitious goals in addition to its health-oriented nature. Therefore, a strategic corridor for the development of Iranian university sports was emerged in this article, by using the scenario tool as one of the future research methods. Exercises in universities are an institutional form of the physical education trend for a healthy and active life. The participants of the present analytical and exploratory study included 34 domestic and foreign individuals interested in Iranian university sports who were selected based on the purposive sampling. Data were collected through interviews and open questionnaires. Based on the findings, analysis of 30 main factors eventually led to production of two key uncertainties of "joining the global sports movement" and "systematization of sustained physical activity", which became the basis for the development of four scenarios named Damavand, Tafakhr, Rooz-az-No and physics. In order to develop the Iranian university sports, separate policies should be developed in different domains of university sports based on sustainable physical activities.

The nature of future jobs will be different from what we have today, due to trends and changes in the society. Therefore, one cannot expect trained human resources in past jobs to have the potential to play a role in new and emerging jobs in the future. Meanwhile, as one of the sectors with high employment potential, the agricultural sector will also see job changes under the influence of transformative trends. Therefore, the present research seeks to conduct a future study of agricultural jobs. For this purpose, the qualitative approach of environmental scanning has been used as a method. In this process, apart from reviewing documents and reports, 13 experts selected by snowball sampling from different fields of agriculture familiar with training and development of agricultural jobs were also interviewed. The value of the agreement coefficient between the evaluators (Cohen’s Kappa) was sufficient. Overall, the results indicate that on the one hand, trends such as reducing economic potential and shrinking agricultural land and consequently increasing the risk of agricultural activities have had negative impacts on employment. On the other hand, trends of increasing population and the necessity of agricultural products for society are factors with significant potential to curb the decline in demand for agricultural jobs. The outcome of these factors will eventually lead to the emergence of jobs based on higher-profit, knowledge-based products, and focus on waste reduction or business recovery.

The main theme of futures studies in higher education is the systematic identification of the forces and drivers of change, opportunities and threats of change, designing a vision and a favorable future for higher education and an effective university, and designing effective strategies and actions to achieve a desirable future. Therefore, this study was conducted to outline the studies of higher education futures studies desks located in the Institute for Research and Planning in Higher Education during (2014 to 2021) as a systematic manifestation of higher education futures studies in Iran. For this purpose, the qualitative meta-analysis method was used to analyze and integrate these studies with a comprehensive approach (quantitative and qualitative) in both form and content dimensions. Findings in the form of evidence indicate the continuation of desk studies in different years and the participation of a diverse range of stakeholders from the scientific and managerial body of universities and higher education and research Institutions. On the other hand, in the content dimension of desk studies in eight thematic categories including management and effectiveness of higher education, higher education planning, evaluation and quality of higher education, university curriculum and learning, information and communication technology and cyberspace in higher education, economics of higher education , And the internationalization of higher education has been done that under each of the categories, according to the conditions and requirements of the country, priority issues have been selected and studied in an interdisciplinary approach.