Designing a Framework for Universities Annual Reports

Public universities in Iran prepare financial statements according to the legal requirements and public sector accounting standards. However, these financial statements accompanied by the annual activity reports are not the same as the annual reports prepared in economic sectors. Preparation of such reports is mandatory in the articles of association of some universities. Our purpose is to design a framework for the annual reporting of universities so that the stakeholders can have coherent and transparent information about the various fields of the university. This study is an applied research conducted through document analysis, content analysis and survey. First, by reviewing the annual reports of twenty universities, we do a content analysis and identify components of the annual reports of the universities. Then, in order to validate the framework of the annual report, we use 28 experts’ opinions collected through a questionnaire in order to present our proposed framework for the annual reporting. Our results show that providing information in the fields of education, research, innovation, health, art, social, environmental, safety, communication and information technology, supporting activities, industry, ceremony, awards, survey, ranking, demographic information, infrastructures, human resources, governance and financial components are useful for stakeholders. Also, research information, infrastructures, and revenue and expense information are the most important components. Our research presents an annual reporting framework for universities for the first time in Iran and adds to the existing literature regarding integrated reporting.