According to the report of Secretariat of International Accreditation of Iranian Medical Universities, this meeting was held on October 16th in the session of the board of directors at the University of Kharazmi with the presence of Dr. Nekoofar, Director of International Relations, Accreditation and Ranking ; and Ms. Tania Azadi from Tehran University of Medical Sciences and members of Secretariat of International Accreditation of Iranian Medical Universities; the Chancellor of University of Kharazmi; Vice Chancellor for Education, Vice Chancellor for Research Affairs, Vice chancellor for Management Development and Resource Planning, Vice Chancellor for Students Affairs, and some other faculty members and academic experts of University of Kharazmi.
In the beginning, Dr. Nekoofar talked about the importance of internationalization in higher education and mentioned that accreditation is one of the tools to achieve the goals of internationalization. He also pointed to potential capacity of University of Kharazmi such as its’ long-term history and the presence of distinguished figures in the history of the university that has made this university to enter the scientific international arena. He pointed to the ranking of the university in the available ranking systems, and emphasized more on the universities’ websites in English and providing a variety of contents including curriculum in English; strategic plans, statistics and other information of the university in English; and resume of faculty members in English which are the most important items in promoting the university ranking.
Dr. Nekoofar stated that the implementation of international accreditation at the University of Kharazmi needs a comprehensive participation of line and staff units and forming an international accreditation network will help to get cooperation. Based on the three-level structure of the network, core or the first level of the network which consist of the university board of directors has a policy-making role and decides about the key activities that should be performed. At the second level there are offices of educational Affairs, International Affairs, Research Affairs, Students Affairs, Management Development and Resource Planning Affairs that make efforts to implement the policies which have been issued by the first level and at the third level, there are accreditation committees in schools who are in close contact with staff of the second level and apply accreditation indicators.
Then, Dr. Nekoofar explained about the cost of implementing this processes and said that the cost will be about 18,000 pounds, but the secretariat has negotiated with ASIC to reduce the cost of implementation.
At the end, the questions already raised by them were responded.
Reported by: Secretariat of International Accreditation of Iranian Medical Universities