Identifying dimensions of university autonomy in pursuit of transformation and innovation policies in medical sciences education

Background and The main focus of transformation and innovation in medical sciences is the development of infrastructures and decentralization. Therefore, the aim of this study was to identify the dimensions of university autonomy in pursuit of transformation and innovation in Mazandaran Medical Sciences Universities. . This study was applied in terms of purpose with an exploratory mixed approach, and the research strategies were descriptive survey in quantitative section. The statistical population, in qualitative section, was the faculty members of Mazandaran Medical Sciences Universities, among whom 10 persons were selected through targeted sampling method based on theoretical saturation, and was 434 faculty members among whom 204 ones were selected using stratified random sampling method based on academic rank in the quantitative section as a sample. Data were collected using a researcher-made questionnaire containing 75 questions. The face and content validity of the tool was confirmed by the experts, and its reliability and Cronbach's alpha with more than 0.7 were corroborated, too. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis tests were used for data analysis. The results showed that the academic autonomy had two dimensions: “structural and content”. The structural dimension had four components of autonomy (organizational, financial, policymaking, national and regional), and the content dimension had three components of autonomy (scientific-educational, research and technology). The structural and content dimensions with factor loading of 0.990 and 0.961 had the most and least dimensional effect, respectively. Considering the findings, it is necessary to pay attention to scientific freedom and autonomy in the universities to maintain the scientific quality and validity.