The Optimal Conditions and Requirements for New-Generation Medical Universities with Emphasis on The Structure of The Iranian Health Network

At first, education was the university’s only goal; nevertheless, scientific progress in the twentieth century added research to the universities’ missions. The industry sector’s knowledge-based technologies added a third mission to universities and brought the university into new fields. The fourth-generation universities provided a more comprehensive view by considering the four elements including university, industry, government, and civil society and the next generation (the fifth generation) of universities also considered the environment in addition to these four elements. The present study examined the optimal conditions and requirements for new-generation medical universities (third- to fifth-generation universities). This review study extracted 187 scientific documents from domestic and foreign databases and after screening, 56 documents were selected for the study. Finally, the propositions relevant to the objective of the study were extracted and categorized using content analysis. This study identified 17 optimal conditions for transitioning to new-generation universities. Moreover, 41 requirements were extracted and listed for achieving these conditions, each under its corresponding condition. New-generation universities are known as borderless and accountable universities. Thus, the communication and exchange of knowledge, capital, and value with institutions outside the university at the local, national, and international levels as well as accountability to the needs created at these levels are the main principles of new-generation universities. Given the unique structure of the Iranian health system and the infrastructure for communicating with society, by fulfilling other requirements, this structure can facilitate the transition to new-generation medical universities.