Challenges and opportunities of acquiring scientific authority in medical sciences: determination of the experts’ views based on qualitative content analysis

Introduction: Capability is built upon knowledge and wisdom,and scientific progress and development is associated withwealth production, national and international authority, andindependence. To promote scientific development, as a prerequisiteto the country’s progress in other areas, there is a need for strategicplanning and creating scientific capacities. Today’s world is facinga rapid growth and development in science and technology, anduniversities and higher education centers have an important rolein the society’s development and progress in the areas of humanresources training, science and technology production, andsolving different problems. Considering the Iran’s health scientificroad map and communication of innovation and reform plans, andsince universities are required to identify the areas of authority,this study was conducted to determine the challenges of scientificauthority promotion and proper courses of action.Methods: In this study, content analysis was used as a qualitativeresearch method. The triangulation method was applied for datacollection. Purposive sampling was done to select the participantsfor focused group discussion and data collection continued untildata saturation was achieved. The participants were 19 highereducation experts and MOHME policymakers. The ATLAS.tisoftware version 5.2 was used for analysis of data.Results: The results of the analysis of transcripts obtained fromFGD with higher education experts and MOHME policymakersshowed 4 themes, 10 categories and 43 sub-categories. The resultingthemes included: “Experienced perceptions of scientific authority”,“Requirements of scientific authority”, “Challenges of scientificauthority”, and “Strategies for promoting scientific authority”. Conclusion: Universities and governmental sectors do notrepresent all the capacities, and there are much more capacitiesthat can be exploited with participation of different sectorsand institutions, especially inter-sectoral and inter-universitycollaborations. Many advances in new sciences have occurredin interdisciplinary majors, and these collaborations help to takesolid steps towards scientific authority.