Environmental Scanning of Higher Education Evaluation in Selected Countries and Lessons for Iran

Today higher education is one of the most important institutions for human being and civilization development. Moreover, in the world economy system during the previous decades higher education has turned into one of the driving forces for generating power and wealth in national, regional and international spheres. From future studies point of view the complexity of higher education as a system and the society which surrounds it alongside the competition among higher education institutions to obtain a prestigious status make it critical for them to enhance themselves. Vigorous attempt of universities to gain a good position in global rankings is a well-known sign of competitiveness among higher education institutions. The countries which have greater pools of talents produce more power and wealth. Given this trend the evaluation of higher education institutions to determine their regional or global ranking has become much more important. In this article, the authors propose an evaluation model and some indicators using environmental scanning as well as trends and events analysis.