نشریه رهیافت
پیاپی 76 (زمستان 1398)

Universities are amongst the most important institutions that play crucial roles with respect to bringing about and shaping the modern world. The institution of the university also partakes in providing effective responses to the endless challenges which are emerged in the modern world. The frequency of the appearance of these challenges, in comparison to what was happening in the pre-modern world, is much higher. The present paper, first, provides a brief account of some of the chief functions and main models of universities as well as some of the crucial local and global challenges and the role of universities in dealing with them. Then, it discusses the issue of the ‘public space’, its principal characteristics, and the mutual relationship between it and the institution of the university. The main argument of the paper is that the institutions of the university and the public space, as two socially constructed entities which are both the products of collective intentionalities, are constantly evolving and in doing so exert influence upon each other, as well as other entities in the realm of social realities including the institution of the state, and the sphere of politics, culture, and economy. In return, the institution of university and the public space are influenced by those other entities in the social realm. The net result of these many-folded influences is the actualisation of vast potentials which are inherent in these entities and institutions. The actualisation of these potentials is directly linked, on the one hand, to the needs of their users and, on the other, on the inbuilt functions of these institutions. The paper intends to provide an answer to the problem of identifying theoretical models or the sets of instructions by which one can manage the interaction between these institutions and socially constructed entities, ensuring, as much as possible, maximal actualisation of their positive capacities and suppression of their negative capacities.

This paper analyzes the impacts and consequences of the activities of universities and non-governmental, non-profit higher education institutions. The statistical population is 355 officials of these institutions across the country. Out of this population, 201 were selected as sample population by stratified sampling. Survey and questionnaires were employed to collect data and through quantitative method the data was analyzed. Research findings suggest that the activities of these centers have had various consequences, including expanding higher education, decreasing government authority and spending, reducing internal and external migration for education, assisting in the dismantling of the university entrance examination (konkour), localizing higher education in the provinces, promoting culture of education, creating jobs and income for faculty, staff, and sessional lecturer, and creating opportunity to bring ideas and capabilities out of government.

Theorization Chairs are scientific circles for criticizing and evaluating scientific proposals to claim that they are presenting a theory. These chairs are under the executive management of The Board of Theorization, Criticism and Debate. The Code of the Chairs is essentially an executive code. The Code defines the science and classifies the sciences from a realistic point of view and not from an ideological point of view. It just to group the existing scientific disciplines from a thematic and methodological point of view. In the absence of defining the terms of “science” and “theory”, the codebook uses the terms “hypotheses”, “problem”, “arguments”, and “competing theories” for defining the process of theory making. The Code proposes “ultimate judgment-value” for evaluating theories but the research shows that the writer of the proposal (theory maker), is under the influence of an ideological point of view and under that influence, has interpreted the Code’s approach as a “primary judgment-value”. This misunderstanding, has paved the way for emerging a challenge between the discursive values of the Code with the discursive values of the theory maker.

World-class universities are academic institutions which dedicated to creating and spreading knowledge in a range of disciplines and contexts, providing the higher education with quality at all levels, responding to national demands, and help to increasing the interests of international. Therefore, promoting status of universities and also, promoting rank of them is as a main goal for most of universities and administrators around the world to achieve a world-class university. The aim of the present study was to investigate the approaches to establishing a world class university in Iran, to achieve the aim, a documents analysis method for gathering and analyzing the documents and evidences about world class university was conducted. The results showed that each country for having a world class university must to consider their potentials for choosing one of the fundamental approaches (e.g. promotion, integration and build). According the point of view of present researcher and with comparison between approaches to achieve world class university also, considering lack of budget in our country as well as, existence a few universities with international context, promoting the current universities is an appropriate approach to achieve world class universities in Iran.

Evaluating the success of policies and the reasons for their success or failure is an important part of the policy process. To assess the effectiveness of policy and program, it is necessary to specify the rationales and goals of the policy tools to be the basis for determining the evaluation criteria. A logic model by explaining the elements of a policy including resources, activities, outputs, short-medium- and long-term outcomes, and external impacts can be considered as the basis for the expected performance report of the programs. In this paper, first, the aims and rationales of fiscal and tax policy instruments are examined from a theoretical standpoint and based on a logic model. Then the law for supporting Knowledge-based firms (KBFs)is considered as a case study and the rationales of tax exemption and funding policy tools are presented on the basis of a logic model after analyzing the content of the relevant documents of this law and the interviews

In recent years, more attention has been paid to the role of knowledge networks in the economic growth of regions. It is widely believed that regional growth is largely dependent on the value created within local knowledge networks by multiple actors (firms, knowledge institutions, and public institutions). Interactions between these actors take place within local networks. The purpose of this study is to better understand local knowledge networks as an important determinant of regional growth and to investigate the role of knowledge institutions in these networks in a cluster. In this study, a case study with the social network analysis approach was adapted to provide empirical evidence of the characteristics of local knowledge networks and the role of universities, research centers, and support institutions. Innovation survey and network survey methods were used to collect primary data. The results of this research show the structural difference in monitoring, labor mobility, and collaboration networks, and also the different positions of knowledge institutions in each knowledge networks. Among the linkages of firms with knowledge institutions, the largest number of ties is related to interactions with universities in the region. Also, local universities are the most important source of recruitment of skilled personnel in the region. But the level of collaboration and monitoring between industrial firms and knowledge institutions is low. Firms with formal R&D units are more active in knowledge networks, overall.

Research and Technology Organizations have been established with different approaches in several countries. They have as an intermediary link among industry, government and university. The history of these organizations back to the beginning of twentieth century, that their objective was supporting industries. Nowadays, Research and Technology Organizations use different missions and strategies depending on the circumstances of their country or region. This paper tries to analyze the strategies of research and technology organizations in European Union countries. In this regard, various approaches from the point of view of innovation, industry, government, and performance indicators in other areas have been mainly studied in the EU. The research methodology is descriptive and analytic. The data collections are based on documental study, published and library research. These indicators and the innovation approaches are analyzed, structured and proposed as a new category at the end of this paper. Finally, in the results analysis section, a new strategy summary is presented in four approaches, government-oriented, industry-based, innovative and foresight base. An analytical comparison for the Iran’s research organizations is presented comparing to the current existing approaches