Need Assessment and Priority Setting of Strategic Researches for Scientific Development of a Medical Faculty

Researches’ needs assessment has a great contribution in the research planning process. This research has been carried out for the needs assessment and prioritization of strategic researches in the field of scientific development of a medical faculty in Iran.
This research is a mixed study that was conducted in two qualitative and quantitative phases, and was completed in 2016. The research sample consisted of strategic documents, 9 policy makers, 31 managers of educational groups and 12 stakeholders from a medical faculty in Iran who were selected by a purposeful sampling method.The data of the qualitative section were gathered through reviews, analysis and documentation analysis and group interviews were done and analyzed by content analysis method. The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was used to rank the criteria and the TOPSIS technique was used to rank the titles.
By analyzing the qualitative phase data, 48 research topics were identified in four strategic axes. . In the quantitative phase, the first priorities of the research were based on the evaluation of experts and policy makers of the faculty determined and included: providing solutions for maintaining human capital (with a score of 0.713) in the human capital axis, the need for the assessment of the fields and sections required based on the organizational needs and stakeholders (with a score of: 0.769) in the education and training of students, evaluating and assessing the required scientific-educational poles (with a score of 0.761) in the knowledge generation axis and the identification of priority areas was obtained based on the mission of the faculty (with Score: 0.746) governance of the faculty.
The research topics prioritized in this study (within the framework of the strategic goals of the faculty) can realize the perspective of its scientific development and make the dynamism necessary for its mission.