the position of university classification in iran and international arena; a systematic review

background: providing an appropriate background is essential for necessary changes and innovation in the higher education, the need to review the classification criteria and development of the type of native criteria and local standards which match the cultural and scientific requirements of the country. investigating the possible types of indicators to adjusted accurately and objectively is important to be effective. methods: in this systematic review we used 10 primary keywords to study the existing documents and links to related databases in the period of 2000-2011.were studied and classified information with international universities in the structure collection and content analysis was carried out during the process. results: in this study of the original documentary (3954), 19 articles were found completely relevant to the topic. these articles points to four domains such as; influential presence of the international arena, the improvement of higher educational system and research centered. conventional university classification is solely in iran but there are some similarities between the frameworks in china and the united states. for example the carnegie classification of colleges and universities in the united states and the chinese university in 2000 introduced two groups; pole key universities and other universities. the comparison and assessment of the performance of universities in the international arena must be considered important. conclusions: the university classification process should clarify university management, extent and scope of work, university influence over the country, and the role of university in long-term goals of the country. if we accept it, we will be able to set it up with a better and more efficiently. therefore we need to define indicators of functional types as  transparent, scientific and consistent with the native culture and new combinations in universities. it is necessary to combine the international indices with the combination of native priorities.