A comparative study of faculty recruitment policies in top universities in the world and Iran

Nowadays, higher education has a special place in society as an institution for educating specialized human resources. One of the important factors affecting the quality of the output of the higher education system is faculty members. Utilizing the experiences of developed countries and comparative studies in this field can be one of the appropriate methods to make policies for recruiting faculty members. Considering the importance and necessity of this issue, this study aimed to compare the policies of recruiting faculty members in the higher education system of the top universities in the world and Iran. Methods and Materials: This qualitative study is descriptive-analytical. Nine documents from top universities based on the policies of recruiting faculty members were compared with this process in Iran.

From studing the faculty recruitment policies of of selected countries and its analysis eight themes were extracted: diversity, justice, equality, transparency, priority of specific groups, international appeal, diversity and accountability.

Although the policies making in each country are appropriate to the cultural, social and higher education system characteristics of that country, paying attention to them, puts new horizons and new perspectives before higher education policymakers to be used to improve Iran's higher education system.