Implementing Accreditation Approach in Agricultural and Natural Resources Research Centers of Iran

Providing an appropriate model for accreditation of Agricultural and Natutal Recources Research Centers is a heavy duty for monitoring and evaluation of these centers. An accreditation is a process of validation in which academic institutions are evaluated. To do this, an accreditation council must first be formed which its focus is reflected in its belief, vision, mission and values. The standards for accreditation are set by a peer review board whose members include faculty members from the accredited institute and the other accredited centers. Therefore, research centers, with their own evaluation of accreditation program, may be able to develop a model for their ongoing performance monitoring. To this end, they must first form different agents or working groups according to their tasks and missions. Each working group defines the tables of objectives and indicators including main objectives, sub-main objectives, evaluation criteria, measurement indices, and achievement criteria. Measurement tool for the evaluation is a specialized questionnaire relevant to each working group together with the registered data of the evaluated institute. The questionnaire is filled by relevant target groups in the National Agricultural Research Centers in the country. The questionnaires are then collected and analyzed. One of the important outcomes of the evaluation is the motivation of the staff of evaluated center in attention to the importance and quality of research in the center and showing its current situation. In addition, the current status of the center will be determined in terms of its possible distance to the level of utility and standards.