Higher education and sustainable environment in Iran from the perspective of key informants

In Iran, like other societies, along with the process of globalization and the country's development process, the rate of exploitation and destruction of nature. It is expected that the institution of education and especially higher education works in the direction of building culture for the optimal use of nature and the realization of a healthy and sustainable environment. This paper is theoretically based on John Hannigan's theory and on thematic analysis method in terms of research orientation. Participants in the research include ten managers of the Iranian Ministry of Science, Research and Technology, as well as agents of the Environmental Protection Organization, who were selected through a targeted sampling and then interviewed in depth.  First of all, the respondents pointed to the fact that, the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology has not done any special activity regarding environmental sustainability. In the second stage, in response to the question of what kind of activities the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology can do in this field, comments were gathered. Using McQuida software, 99 codes were extracted from the findings. Then by classifying the codes into 13 categories, including the planned intervention of the government, paying attention to the principle of cultural continuity, territorial planning, public awareness and education, creating discourse in universities, strengthening organizations Madani, Prioritizing research on sustainable environment, Development of environment-oriented educational programs, strengthening inter-sectoral cooperation in the direction of sustainable environment, synergy and alignment, taking advantage of the role of experts, capacity building through media and green management were identified.