A Strategic Approach to Financial Autonomy in Iranian Universities; a Hybrid model SWOT-TOPSIS

It has been a long time that selecting and optimizing strategies for financing and incrementing the income diversification of public universities is becoming challenging. The aim of this study is to prioritize optimal strategies for financial autonomy of public universities in Tehran with qualitative-quantitative approach. The methodology of the study is Descriptive-analytical in which the data from interviewing 20 expert in higher education was gathered and organized. The optimal strategies were obtained using SWOT technique. In the next step in order to determine the priority strategy in current situation of universities the TOPSIS technique is used. The findings illustrate six strategy for financial autonomy of universities. the “improving the research infrastructures” strategy with 0.63 closeness coefficient of each alternative is the first strategy and the second strategy which can lead the universities to gain more nonpublic revenue is “revenue diversification” with 0.61 closeness coefficient of each alternative. The prioritized strategies indicate that financial autonomy of begins from rethinking and managing the internal processes of universities.