Policies and Processes of Academic Promotion in Selected Universities of the World

Academic faculty members’ promotion systems can be viewed as a specialized qualitative process that can providethe grounds for fundamental academic transformations. For the aim of reforming promotion mechanisms isrealimprovementof qualities ofsociety and universities, this requires a revisit of its fundamental policies. In this regard,we shall ask what administrative structures and procedural processes is required for the realization of such reformations. To address this question, this article adopts a comparative perspective to explore the administrative processes of academic promotion mechanism at six universities around the world: Cambridge (UK), British Columbia (Canada), Harvard (US), Melbourne (Australia), Indraprastha (India), and Cape Town (South Africa). The specific research issues of this study include stated goals of the promotion processes; promotion application procedures; decision making authorities at different levels; promotion application documents; and evaluation processes of promotion application documents. Results of this study willcompared with the Academic Promotion Statute of universities in Iran, and quite a few concerns and issues will beraised about different aspects of the academic promotion processes in our universities. A direct adoption of the internationally applied promotion mechanisms is socially and culturally not desirable and basically they are not applicable in this region. However, consideration of such international experiences may open some new horizons, provide alternative perspectives and ideas for policy makers, and make some authorities in the areas of higher education, academic research, and science and technology.