A Performance Evaluation Model for Faculty Members of Research Centers

In recent decade, special attention is being paid to basic research for science production but less attention has been given to applied research for technology development. In order to solve this problem establishing and/or extending research centers in universities is planned and faculty members are hired to work at these centers. Performance improvement of universities in technology developments are based on useful and effective activities of faculty members of research centers.Conducting applied and demand-driven researches are prerequisites for technology developments in the country and improving its rank in the world in this area. Faculty members of the research centers perform various activities to do their duties, the main goals of their activities for developing technologies are applied demand-driven research and technology development. Therefore, continuous evaluation of their performances is necessary by developing useful and effective indicators.In this article a new model is designed for performance evaluation of faculty members of research centers, and as a case study the model is used to evaluate the performance of faculty members of research centers of Amirkabir University of Technology. One of the results of this evaluation can be used for appropriate directing and orientating and identifying the efficiency of faculty members of research centers in order to increase their efficiency. Additionally, this evaluation can increase the quality and the quantity of research activities by creating effective competition between faculty members. Also, this type of comparative studies can detect the weaknesses in performance of faculty members who do not have proper function in order to make necessary decision for solving related problems.