Razi University Perspectives, Missions, and Strategic Plans

Razi University Statement:
Being a model of education for the west of Iran and seeking to consolidate Islamic values, social justice, national unity and solidarity, Razi University is deemed to educate and train committed experts and believers in the superiority of knowledge as the future manpower in order to lay the groundwork for the realization of sustainable development and to promote the sense of responsibility, contribution, discipline and scientific and research-based responsiveness to social issues and problems for the identification of requirements, needs, and the designation of a knowledge-based society. On its path towards a civilizing university, it strives to be influential in overcoming prevalent challenges and enhancing the quality of life in the society by employing modern science and technology, modern innovations, scientific innovations, global standards, and by encouraging collaboration with national and international centers and scientists.

Razi University Dreams:
         Human Resource's excellence in following Islamic Iranian values and professional ethics. 
     •    Maximum satisfaction of beneficiaries by enhancing the quality in various areas.

To reach these dreams, the following strategic goals are set:
     1-    Enhancement of administrative system and planning of the university
     2-    Enhancement of cultural and social activities of the university
     3-    Enhancement of the comprehensive system of research and technology of the university
     4-    Enhancement of services for the students of the university
     5-    Enhancement of the educational system of the university
     6-    Enhancement of bureaucratic and financial system of the university
     7-    Development of the international collaborations of the university
There are several operational objectives for each goal.

Razi University Strategic Plans
The Leading Pillars of Razi University Strategic Plans
The Statement of Razi University Perspectives: "Razi University in the horizon of 1404, is a university which is ethics-based, progressive in the realization of a knowledge-based society, one of the top seven universities of the country, a developer of science and technology employment in the society, a model of the accommodation of the scientific, educational, and research needs of the region, an owner of the global capacity to empower its academics for shaping the knowledge-based model of national development, a trainer for humans who possess the required knowledge and sufficient skills for success in their workplace and in prominent roles they play in the society."

The Statement of Razi University Fundamental Values
     1-    Production-centeredness, justice spread, national unity, social solidarity, and groundwork preparation for the realization of the sustainable development
     2-    The superiority of knowledge, reverence for science and scientists, legal and ethical respect to scientific and intellectual achievements and their exploitation.
     3-    Promotion of ethics, precedence of public interests over personal interests and those of parties, sense of collaboration, responsibility and responsiveness.
     4-    Belief in empowering and profitable science, research, and technology
     5-    Reaching perfection in doing tasks and activities, protecting environment and actualizing the green university.
     6-    Following civil principles and developing the dynamic and lively cultural environment paving the way towards the process of growth and development

University Action Plan
University Action Plan for the Academic Years of 2017-2022

University Roles, Duties, and Activities
University Role
On the way towards establishing an effective link between university and industry, goals must be set, and fundamental activities, capabilities and differences must be identified. Expectations of each party from the other side must also be taken into account in order to tackle the discrepancies and form an effective link. Some of the expectations from the university include: conducting theoretical and applied research, coordinating university courses with industry, training the staff and managers of industries, shifting university towards entrepreneurship, holding conferences, seminars, and publishing journals, etc. Some of the expectations from the industry, on the other hand, are as follows: referring research needs to the university, supplying workforce with university graduates, commercializing research, facilitating students' internships, training and job-hunting, industrial tours, research visits, etc. University-Industry collaborations have always been plagued by the following challenges:
     -    Institutions' cultural differences
     -    The conflicting desire of university for publishing results, as opposed to the industry's interest in secrecy in order to preserve the ownership of ideas and the competitive advantages.
     -    Subjects mutually relevant to both sides and sharing incomes.
     -    Difference in allocated time of planning between the two institutions.
University's relationship with industry is presently established through a set of succeeding interactions such as supported research, university-based companies and the employment of students. This relationship would take on a new form by the intervention of the government. As autonomous institutions, these three main parties would interrelate, and build the foundation of science together. The coordinating role of the government is a key to the enhancement of the active collaborations between partners in either developed or developing countries. One model of university-industry-government communication is the "Triple-Helix" model. The theoreticians of this model (Henry Etzkowitz and Loet Leydesdorff) have focused on the overlap of a set of interactions that cause change in the institutional training among universities, industries, and governmental organizations. The Triple-Helix model assumes that the university-industry-government interaction is the key to the improvement of innovation in knowledge-based societies. The strength of the Triple-Helix model lies in its focus on the relationships of the university since academia plays an active role in the dynamicity of a knowledge-based society in the long run due to its persistent output of graduates and its effect on the government body and job market.
In economics, the sections are usually divided based on two important functions: ownership and coordination mechanism. The prominent aspect of each one decides on the characteristics of economies with regard to their market and non-market or governmental and private sectors. The main question is which of the important technological products and services of the world have been derived from the aforementioned systems?
Take the Internet, GPS technology, and touch screen as examples. These are all very smart and revolutionary examples of a knowledge-based economy, all the budget of which has been provided by the government. The Internet budget was supplied by the US Secretary of Defense, GPS project was funded by Navstar, and touch screen technology was the financially support through grants given to the researchers of two state universities located in Delaware. A very interesting point about the examples above is that what the government has done goes beyond taking care of failures of the market. The government has essentially been the creator and developer of markets. The government has not only provided the budget of the basic research – being public goods, itself – but also funded the applied research. Therefore, the governmental budget for the innovative research plans, small businesses and the technical analysis of software products are of utmost importance in comparison with the risky investment of the private sector, which is because it is too short and must pay off within three to five years. That is while the innovation takes longer – even up to 15 to 20 years. With this in mind, it is not like the government is only responsible for the infrastructure and the budget of the basic necessities when it comes a knowledge-based economy. In the aforementioned examples, not only the budget supply and expenses but also predictions and the strategic perspective for this investment would essentially come out of the government. In Iran, Nanotechnology is attractive to study with this regard since the significant achievements of this section emanates from universities funded directly or indirectly by the government.
In a knowledge-based economy, one should not prefer market to the government even for the transfer of the technology and its right employment, and the contribution of both governmental and private organizations is required for dynamic investment in knowledge-based companies. What the government has done in the aforementioned examples is more of embracing risk than eliminating it.
In the joint article Can “The Public” Be Considered as a Fourth Helixin University-Industry-Government Relations?, Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff have considered the addition of society to communicative helixes. The authors believe that the persistent requests of the society for the technological innovations may encourage the emergence of an increasingly knowledge-based economy. According to the Quadruple Helix Model of innovation, the economic structure of each country is based on four helixes of University-Industry-Government-Civil Society, and the economic growth is obtained through categorizing and concentrating on the talented and productive people. Pursuing this trend, Carayannis and Campbell conceptualized the Quintuple Innovation Helix framework by adding the fifth helix of "the environment" (natural environments). The Quintuple Helix is accepted as a metadisciplinary and interdisciplinary framework for the analysis of sustainable development and Social Ecology. The balance between the routes to social/economic development and natural environments is of utmost importance for human progress.
Razi University should design the "conceptual model" and "scientific and local model inspired by the intended revolutionary and Islamic culture of the Islamic Republic of Iran" and predict the required action plans for their realization in the region. To this end, it is necessary to amend the regulations for the "intra-university research plans", the "inter-university research plans", and the "projects and research rewards" so that they would be in line with the research and operational needs of the country and would consolidate the bond between the university and industry. As main prerequisites, practical solutions to the realization of the knowledge-based society must be provided by the university through theses and research plans as well as making most of the current potentials of research centers for conducting theoretical, developmental, and applied research. By supporting centers of development and establishing knowledge-based companies, Razi University must be capable of playing a crucial role in the commercialization of science, the development of entrepreneurship and innovation, establishing link with industry, and ultimately, the realization of the knowledge-based economy. Reconsidering and facilitating the theses-related processes as well as the regulations of the centers of developments and knowledge-based companies may also be of benefit.
It seems as though group research conducted so far on the national fundamental issues which are "interdisciplinary" in nature, have been vastly insufficient. As an interdisciplinary subject, knowledge-based economy has the capacity to be academically studied as an "interdisciplinary problem" from economic, managerial, technical, cultural, modelling, and political perspectives, so that it would be a step forward towards developing suitable plans for all the interdisciplinary problems of the country. In order for these research plans to come true in the university, new rules and regulations must be set. Along this journey, the university must have organized plans for the required amendments and changes in the procedures and educational syllabi, in order to be capable of accommodating social needs and train creative, productive, and innovative human resources for the society. In order to build the culture for a knowledge-based society and changing it into a common and pervasive national discourse, the university must take actions by holding educational workshops (on the level of managers, faculty members, employees, and students), scientific conferences and speeches (on the department, faculty, and university levels), and by exploiting all its available capacity such as journals, quarterly magazines, webpages and other mass communication tools. It goes without saying that talking about culture in the knowledge-based society and increasing the efficiency of human capital at university could make a significant contribution to the achieving this goal.