Challenges and Performance Improvement Approaches of Boards of Trustees of Universities of Medical Sciences and Health Services in Iran

The p hilosophy of creating Boards of Trustees of Universities (BTU) has been to provide a law making reference at the top of organizational hierarchy of higher education institutes in order to administrate and supervise all affairs (education، research and services). Considering Iran''s Vision 2025، performance of this important system should be harmonized and improved based on the upstream documents'' objectives. This descriptive study was conducted on members and responsible individuals of the secretariats of the BTUs. Data were gathered on the areas of the BTU challenges and improving approaches using a self-written questionnaire. Problems and improving approaches of the secretariats of the BTUs were also collected through running several focus group discussion sessions with responsible individuals. Satisfaction of the respondent BTU members were high on the following issues: implementing the decisions made by the BTUs، current composition of the BTUs stipulated in the Act، members selection of the BTUs، supervisory mechanism of the Ministry of Health and Medical Education (MOHME) on medical universities، BTUs'' current structure (secretariat، experts، working processes) and all the powers delegated to the BTUs based on the Act and Article 49 of the Fourth Development Plan. Satisfaction rate of the BTU performance regarding collection of donation from private sector and people contribution was low. Members believed that the current composition of the BTUs should be complemented by representatives of the faculties and people. Main context of the BTUs including financial and trading issues should be placed with «policy making، observatory and high supervision on the university objectives». Executive secretariats with regularity، effective system and competent human resources should be established in the universities. MOHME believes in university autonomy genuinely and give priority to empowerment of the BTU members and try to apply this idea by creating expert and consultancy system in the headquarters of the MOHME and running objective training courses for them. Establishing incentives، competitive policies، and monitoring systems among the BTUs of the universities will improved their performances in short-term.