Situational Analysis and Developing a Model for Management of International Scientific Collaboration in Top Universities of Iran

The purpose of this article is to investigate the existing situation of international scientific collaboration among top universities of Iran and to develop a model for its better management. This research is developmental in terms of approach and uses an exploratory mixed method for data collection. The statistical population for its qualitative section consists of 26 experts involved in international scientific cooperation, who were selected by using purposeful sampling and snowball technique. The statistical population for its quantitative section consists of the faculty members of the top 10 universities of the country (6748 persons), of which 313 were selected through a proportional stratified sampling. The data collection instruments were documents and reports released by the International Scientific Cooperation Center and its branches in top universities, a semi-structured interview and two researcher-made questionnaires. The final model of the management of international scientific collaboration of the top universities of Iran has three main components (objectives, dimensions, status analysis), and the objectives are composed of 10 components, and dimensions includes the educational dimension with 6 factors (46 components), the research dimension with 6 factors (30 components), and cultural dimension with 4 factors (20 components), and finally, the existing situation analysis consists of 4 factors of strengths (15 components), weaknesses (18 components), opportunities (20 components) and threats (20 components) Also, this model has a good fit with the data.