Self-assessment of faculty members of Tabriz University toward social impact of their academic researches

The paper intends to investigate the viewpoints of faculty members of the University of Tabriz toward the social impact of their researches. We applied a survey method for the data collection, with the research population being academic staff, of which, 20% were selected using stratified quota sampling method. As a whole, 153 faculty members of the University of Tabriz participated in this study. The results showed that the mean score of the self-assessment of the participating faculties was 8.72 and the mean of the research population was between 8.29 and 9.15 intervals with 95% confidence, which is the middle range of achievable scores. The self-assessment of major departments toward social impact has had a significant difference. It was found that "industry", "environment", "education", "policy and policy making" and "agriculture" are potential areas for the aforementioned faculties. Results also showed the higher the number of research contracts of faculty members with other organizations, the higher their self-assessment toward the social impact of their researches. Furthermore, some faculties having a working relationship with other organizations could assess the social impact of their researches more than those lacking such relationship. As such it was found that, encouraging the faculties to have working relationship and research contracts with other organizations could increase their attitude toward social impact. In other words, making them more engaged with real issues, including social could increase the impact of their researches.