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Amirhossein Takian (MD PhD FHEA) is Chair and Associate Professor, Department of Global Health & Public Policy, as well as Dean for International Affairs, at the School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. He is also Deputy for International Organizations at the Ministry of Health and Medical Education, I. R. Iran, where he is in charge of overseeing the relationship between the Iranian health system, UN agencies and all international and global organizations.
Since February 2015, Amir has been the communication focal point from Eastern Mediterranean region at the Board of the Global Fund to fight Aids, TB and Malaria, Geneva, Switzerland. In addition, he is a visiting professor of health policy and medical informatics at the school of health and life sciences, Brunel University London, UK.
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Dr. Takian has a track record research in health policy analysis in the field of primary care, global health, and e-health. He is a founder member of National Committee for Prevention and Control of Non-Communicable Diseases, MOHME, Iran; a member of National Committee on Social Determinants of Health, MOHME, Iran; member of advisory committee on health information technology (HIT), Academy Health, USA; member of editorial board at International Journal of Health Policy and Management; member and Senior Advisor to Scientific Deputy at the National Academy of Medical Sciences, Iran. Amir is lifetime fellow of Higher Education Academy of United Kingdom.
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Internationalization of higher education is one of the well-known means to improve the quality of education. It has been defined as the process of integrating an international or intercultural aspect into the teaching, research and service functions of an educational institute. This general definition has influenced a variety of educational fields, including medical education. Providing us with a lot of opportunities like improved academic quality, revenue collection and brain gain, internationalization of higher education has also resulted in a unique set of challenges. This forces the medical schools to carefully choose among different approaches of internationalization (mobilizing, internationalization at home, trans-national education, etc.) for maximizing their benefits and minimizing the obstacles. But, more important than what approach to choose and even before that, the medical universities’ authorities should thoroughly consider different aspects of internationalization through a powerful lens, i.e. the lens of strategic thinking. Strategic thinking involves the generation and application of unique insights and opportunities intended to create competitive advantage for a firm organization. Strategic thinking is intent-focused and hypothesized driven; holds a systems perspective, thinks in time and values opportunities. We will start this talk by rapidly reviewing the basic concepts of strategic thinking and internationalization of medical education, then we reflect on the internationalization approaches endorsed in several exemplary institutes by trying to identify the core elements of strategic thinking in those approaches. We will come to an end by suggesting some practical steps for applying strategic thinking in planning for internationalization of medical and public health education.
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