The role of public relations in the realization of the university with the mission of social responsibility

The inherent feature of the fourth-generation universities is the realization of local and regional development and the effort to improve the surrounding environment. With such an attitude, the present article studies the factors of realizing the fourth-generation universities from the perspective of public relations. To achieve this goal, a qualitative method was used and in order to collect information, semi-structured in-depth interviews were utilized. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. The statistical population of this study was university professors in the specialties of higher education management, social communication sciences, educational sciences, sociology, media management, educational and research assistants of universities, from which 18 people were purposefully selected. The findings of the present study showed that public relations as an effective stimulus can affect the level of university development and effective public relations can help the realization of the fourth-generation universities. According to the interviewees, dynamic public relations have an important role in the realization of the fourth-generation university in Iran due to cultural conceptualization, playing the role of social responsibility, branding, communication management, defining and changing the environment of facilitating communication and creating communication platforms.