Challenges and strategies for the promotion of research in Tabriz University of Medical Sciences , Iran : The analysis of stakeholders ’ views

© 2015 The Authors; Tabriz University of Medical Sciences This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Challenges and strategies for the promotion of research in Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Iran: The analysis of stakeholders’ views

Trying to find the truth was one of the instinctive needs of mankind.The humans and human societies were encountered with lots of problems, during the course of life and evolution and many questions and uncertainties arise in their minds.Natural tendency of mankind to find suitable answers to these questions makes him to search and have a more activity, to solve his inherent exploring needs by a more awareness and knowledge. 1he research was one of the fundamental and major parts in the development of human societies, in a way that, no other scientific and rational movement without any research support, was not possible. 2In the study of economics, research could be seen as an activity of absolute necessity, justified, and with positive return, because it was the basis of innovation, has the planning of change, and development of equipment and means of production. 3urrently, the health care providers have accepted to establish their special actions and their own decisions on the basis of their qualifications, and by this way, they show the suitability and effectiveness of their actions. 4ealing with human health, high-speed production of science, and the need to be up to date for health service providers makes the importance of research two-fold in this area.Therefore, doing basic and effective applied research in this area has the most priority for every country. 5,6Hence, in this regard, it must be used from all the capacities and capabilities of the country.
The results of the literature review and previous studies show us that in the field of research, especially in medical science research in some developing countries, there were always challenges and problems.The results from the investigations of Hefferin et al. showed us that, the main challenges in the field of research were some items included lack of usage from the results of the research, too busy working, problems in statistical analysis, lack of support for research activities, lack of time and money, and lack of adequate incentives to researchers. 7e results from the investigations of Guelich et al. 8 and Curtis et al. 9 showed us that despite the growing number of research centers, but the number of researchers in the field of medical science has shown little increase.Researchers have concluded that income and clinical activities in the field of medical science could further be a factor for lack of an interest in research activities among members of faculty board and students.The results of the literature review revealed challenges in medical sciences in Iran, in which important challenges in this regard were lack of time and too much work of researchers, cumbersome rules, lack of facilities and equipment, any of creating motivation in researchers, non-economic feasibility studies for professors and students, the lack of usage in research results in decision-making, little knowledge among members of faculty board, students and staffs on issues of research.  Recey, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences (TUMS) as one the best and largest universities of medical sciences in Iran, has had always an important role in medical and scientific research and in the production of science.Therefore, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the challenges in the course of investigation in TUMS and giving practical and appropriate solutions from the perspective of the members of faculty board, students, administrators and research staff of the university.This mix-method study (quantitativequalitative) conducted in summer-2014 in TUMS.First, to accomplish this goal using the review and comments of professors and experts in the field of challenges in medical sciences, the questionnaire was designed with open questions which include three questions as follows:  Organizational challenges of doing research at TUMS  Individual challenges of doing research at TUMS  Suggestions and practical solutions to address research challenges at TUMS.The participants of this part of research were formed by the members of faculty board, students, administrators and research staff of the university.These people were selected because of their experience, knowledge, high and rich information in research areas.For selecting these people, we used purposive sampling model.In this model, the people who have the greatest and richest information and experiences, and whom that could define their information and experiences in an appropriate way, and make that information handy to researchers, were selected. 32n this research, the sampling continued until data saturation, as far as to the extent that the researchers find and observe that by continuing the sampling model, no new information was available, and the previous information were repeated. 33Data saturation model in this research was obtained by the participation of 43 people of members of faculty board, 35 people of students, 15 people of managers, administrators and research staff (in total, 93 participants).
In this level, to analyze the data, we used content analysis method manually.Content analysis was the qualitative approach to determine the content of the data.Themes, areas of the interest, and models were related to research, that have the features of repetition and using some encryptions.For analyzing the data, notes became in order, complete, and organized and the connection between them has been discovered and shown, and at last all the information were collected and reviewed frequently.Then, all the information and data were gathered and encoded again (in a way that all the codes that represent the same concept were put in a bunch).Encryption was a method that by using them, all the data that were collected were converted to signals for analysis. 34or consistency of the data (Rigor), we used the reviews of the colleagues and immersion of the data (immersed), that were the methods of creating consistency. 35To comply with ethical issues in the study, the participants were informed by their satisfaction prior to delivery of the questionnaire, and individuals to participate in the study were completely free.Moreover, objectives of the study were explained to the participants.
In the second stage, by using the results of the qualitative study and by studying similar questionnaire, the questionnaire was designed with closed questions, that it included 3 questions in the area of demographic data, and 26 questions in the area of challenges, (20 questions of organizational challenges, and 6 questions of individual challenges).The validity of the questionnaires has improved by the comments of the members of faculty board and research staff of the university.Reliability of the questionnaire was evaluated using test and retest method by participating 30 people, and good reliability was assessed (α = 0.9).
The Morgan diagram was used to determine the sample size that according to statistical population, the sample size was calculated to 360 people, in which for increasing the strength of the research, and reducing the impact of sample loss, 20% were added to the sample size and finally, the sample size of 432 people was calculated for the quantitative study.Then by using the stage sampling method, the sample size was divided into three groups of participants of this study (96 professors, 314 students, 22 managers and universities' staff).
The next step is to prioritize challenges, challenges from the perspective of the expert in the field of research at TUMS, (research assistants of faculties, the headquarters of research centers, the dignitaries in research field) by using the important indicators (To what extent it was important to overcome this problem, or was it necessary, and shall we act to fix it?), the ability to improve it (What was the ease and feasibility of solving this problem?Could we fix this problem simply?), the cost-effectiveness (To what extent solving this problem would be helpful, and what a useful result it will have?),urgency, (What an urgent advantage it will have to solve these problems, and do we need to fix it immediately, or there in no emergency need for resolving those problems?).
Data obtained of this research were used by descriptive statistics method, [frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation (SD)] the whole were examined by SPSS software (version 16, SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA).
The gathered results from the encoding responses of participants in qualitative stage (qualitative questionnaire) have been shown in the two areas of organizational challenges and personal challenges of the research according to table 1.
In the quantitative stage of this research, by using the results of qualitative stage, review of literature, opinions of experts was designed in the field of quantitative research questionnaire, and again with a greater sample size, the research was completed by the attitudes of the members of faculty board, students, administrators and research staff of the university.The results of this stage in this research were shown in tables 2-4.
As it could be considered from table 2, from the perspective of the members of faculty board, the most important research challenges in TUMS include: the effect less of research results in decision making among managers, the lack of using research results, lack of attention to the quality of research, parallelism and the repetition of similar studies, the length of approvals in procedures of research project, lack of time, the full-time work, and lack of financial support in time for the implementation of research project.As it could be considered from table 3, from the perspective of the students, the most important research challenges in TUMS include: low budget of research projects, force of using a specific methodology and framework, the unavailability of the advisers in the research, lack of motivation by officials in researchers especially among students, the effect less of research results in decision making among managers, the lack of using research results, lack of education and attention to the study of research from the lower sections, low revenue from research activities.As it could be considered from the table 4, from the perspective of managers and research staff, the most important research challenges in TUMS include: lack of attention to the quality of research, lack of education, and attention to the study of research from the lower sections, the effect less of research results in decision making among managers, the lack of using research results, parallelism and the repetition of similar studies.
The important proposed solutions for the elimination of research challenges from the attitudes of the members of faculty board, students, administrators and research staff at the TUMS were shown in table 5.
The results of prioritizing the most important research challenges from the attitudes of the members of faculty board, students, administrators, and research staff at the TUMS were shown in table 6.   * Solving of this barrier how much is important or necessary and we must act to fix it?;** Solving of this barrier how much is easy and feasible?; *** Solving of this barrier how much is economical?; † Solving of this barrier how much is emergencies?And is there urgency to fix it?;† † 1 (low priority)  4 (high priority) As it could be considered from the table 6, from the perspective of managers and research staff, the most important research challenges in TUMS include: lack of attention to the quality of research, cumbersome regulations, lack of administrative co-operation with researchers, low budget of research projects, being not familiar enough with the principles of research methodology and statistical methods, the effect less of research results in decision making among managers, the lack of using research results, parallelism and the repetition of similar studies, lack of motivation by officials in researchers, particularly students.
The results showed us that, lack of cooperation with researchers by administrative, and the existence of cumbersome rules, were the most important challenges in TUMS.][38][39][40][41] One of the main important reasons of lack of co-operation with researchers by administrative could be as the existence of cumbersome rules.So by deleting or changing some of the cumbersome rules, perhaps we could enhance the rate of co-operation of administrative with researchers.Furthermore, one of the other reasons of lack of co-operation with researchers by administrative could be negative attitudes of staff and managers of administrative units, because as well as the proposals have been presented, during data collection in this study, it considered that many of the employees and managers of the administrative had a negative attitude and point of view to research, and they mentioned that it was worthless and luxury.Changing laws and attitudes of managers and employees need the correct and principled management in this area, that by using these correct method of management, do all the rules successfully.
In this way, in addition, to have the skills and ability of management in individuals, and to officials who want to remove these challenges, having strong commitment and a positive attitude in these people was necessary and inevitable, that unfortunately sometimes the neglect of these vital rules could be raised.
One of the most challenging points from the view of faculty board, students and staff was lack of time and busy working of people, that reasons such as the high number of educational courses, having the responsibilities in execution of work, family, and society could justify this lack of time and busy working of people.The results of research by Whelan and Markless 42 in London, that have assessed the research challenges in qualitative way from the perspective of faculty members, showed us that the lack of time and busy working of people was one of the most important challenges in research fulfillment.
Furthermore, the results of other similar studies expressed us that lack of time and busy working of people was one of the major research challenges. 43,44Since as it could be seen that some parts of the problem of lack of time could be the lack of skills of time management among individuals, you could partly solved the problem of lack of time, by learning time management principles to these people.One could also diminish the occupation issues of individuals, by enhancing human resources and the division of labor among people and provide the opportunity for people to do research work.In this regard, the results of research by Ghojazadeh et al. 45 in Tabriz, that by training the students in the area of research, the role of faculty fellowship was given to them, has tried by this research that with the help of professors in some cases, the workload of professors got reduced, and professors have a more time on important research work and education issues, and they could increase their quality of work.This issue could also be of the interest to the authorities and policymakers.
Lack of motivation of faculty members and students for research work was one of the most challenging points of view of the participants in this study.The reason for this lack of motivation could be a shortage of revenues in research activities.The attraction of most activities could be the more educational and clinical activities, the difficulty and sensitivity of research.In this regard, the results of studies by Guelich et al. 8 and Curtis et al. 9 showed us that, despite the growing number of research centers, but the number of researchers in the field of medical science has shown little increase.Researchers have concluded that income and appeal of the more clinical activities in the field of medical sciences could be a factor of lack of interest among members of faculty board and students to research activities.
The results of some other studies had confirmed the adverse impact of clinical research activities. 46,47In this regard, in the United States of America, it was tried to merge the research with clinical practice, that means, more research have taken place in clinical practice by clinicians and people working in these sectors. 4However in Iran, lots of research work was done away from clinical sectors by faculty members in academic and training environments.Hence, by the policy of integration between clinical and research activities, we could rather fix this problem.Moreover by increasing the research fees of researchers, and showing the attractiveness of research activities, we could provide the favorable basis for research activities.
Lack of funds for research, and low fees of research activities for researchers were noted as the main challenges from the perspective of the participants that have the compatibility by the results of previous studies carried out in this area. 48,49Finance and funding and facilities for the effective and proper investigation were necessary and inevitable.In the field of medical science, the most of studies were experimental and interventional and require laboratory instruments and materials, laboratory animals and volunteers in experimental studies that were very expensive and costly.1][52][53][54][55][56] Because of reasonable communication with industry and appropriate transfer of knowledge while removing obstacles to the use of research results; it could remove the difficulties of the budget deficit, and low revenue from research work to the researchers.
One of the major challenges that it has been mentioned in studies repeatedly was the lack of individual skills in the field of research methods.Among the most important of these skills, we could mention to how to choose a subject for study, statistical analysis, lack of proficiency and fluency to other languages, and the way of searching the sources.The results of Hamilton 57 research also showed us that, poor interpersonal skills with people were the major challenges in the field of research.Results of previous studies done in this area reported similar results. 58,59Hence, it seems that, the disposal of workshops, developing special training courses for research activities, training professional individuals to specialize in research activities, the recruitment and use of proficient and fluent individuals to other languages in universities, and providing appropriate resources for research in this way could increase the skills and capabilities of individuals and could be effective in solving the problems in this area.
One of the main challenges that were extracted from the perspective of the participants was the lack of attention to the quality of the research.Unlike other challenges, in the past similar studies it has not been mentioned about this challenge.This could be concern and warning to officials of TUMS that it was not mentioned in other universities, but just it mentioned in this university.The reason for this could be due to the quantity of articles and research projects in evaluating the performance, that it must be cared to the quality of research designs instead of their quantity by changing the attitudes and criteria of assessment.
The challenges referred to in this text were divided into two main categories: Challenges of individual and organizational challenges.
By inspecting the contexts and the results of studies that has been done, we could deduce that despite the impact of both individual and organizational challenges in research, it seems to be that organizational challenges have a more negative impact than individual challenges.In one of the research of Karimi et al. 19 in Zahedan University of Medical Sciences, Iran, the members of faculty board had declared that individual challenges have not too much impact on the research, and they described the organizational challenges very important.In this way, Royle et al., 60 in Canada have the belief that organizational challenges have the greater impact compared with individual challenges in lack of doing effective research.
Other studies have also noted the importance of organizational challenges rather than individual challenges. 61Hence probably focusing more on the organizational challenges to remove the challenges involved in research and have more impact and better results.Because some of the individual challenges could affect from their organizational challenges, and in this case, by removing the organizational challenges, we could diminish the individual challenges to some extent.
One of the main limitations of this study was the limitation of the applicability of the results to TUMS.At last, the practical and applied proposal that could be offered to the authorities and policymakers in the field of study in TUMS was that this study has proceeded only for identifying and prioritizing the most important challenges of research at this university.
The most important research challenges in TUMS from the perspective of the members of faculty board, students, administrators, and research staff of the university were: lack of attention to the quality of research, the cumbersome rules, lack of administrative cooperation with researchers, the low of budget of research projects, not being familiar enough with the principles of research methodology and statistical methods, the effect less of research results in managers decision-making, the lack of using research results, parallelism and the repetition of the same studies, lack of motivation by officials in researchers, particularly students.

Table 1 .
Research challenges in Tabriz University of Medical Sciences (TUMS) from the viewpoints of the faculty, students, research staff and managers Faculty of members Lack of co-operations of administrative centers with researchers Existence of cumbersome rules Lack of financial support in time for the implementation of research project Lack of necessary facilities and equipment Parallelism and the repetition of similar studies Multiplicity of decision centers Lack of communication of research centers with local and foreign researchers Low revenue from research activities Students Lack of research priorities of educational groups Lack of motivation in researchers from authorities Unavailability of the advisers in the research Low of budget of research projects Lack of cooperation of health centers, particularly hospitals, with researchers Low revenue from research activities Lack of sufficient proficiency in other languages, especially English Forcing for usage from a specific methodology and framework Lack of professors' support from students in research projects Managers and research staff Lack of time and the full-time work Lack of professors' support from students in research projects

Table 2 .
Research challenges in Tabriz University of Medical Sciences (TUMS) from the viewpoints of the faculty members

Table 3 .
Research challenges in Tabriz University of Medical Sciences (TUMS) from the viewpoints of the student

Table 4 .
Research challenges in Tabriz University of Medical Sciences (TUMS) from the viewpoints of the research managers' and staff's

Table 5 .
Suggested solutions to eliminate the research challenges in Tabriz University of Medical Sciences (TUMS) by the faculty members, students, managers and research staff

Table 6 .
The prioritizing matrix of the main research challenges in Tabriz University of Medical Sciences (TUMS) mentioned by faculty members, students, managers and research staff