Future Studies Group
Rapid and accelerating changes in various fields of technology, society, economics, politics, environment, and values have created risks for the future of health systems and their functions. Health higher education, as one of the most important functions in the health system, has always been affected by these changes and developments, to the extent that it faces a wide range of needs and challenges in interaction with other areas today. In the past, some of these changes could be controlled through traditional planning, but in today's world, where its elements follow more complex functions and systems, this has become accompanied by difficulties that require systematic thinking, understanding of instability, and predicting future probabilities. Therefore, the need for futures studies in this area is felt more than ever before.
Futures studies, as a blend of knowledge and art, always seeks to shape the desired future by discovering and identifying potential futures. It is clear that the recognition and architecture of the future of the country's health higher education depend on numerous components and bold actions that connect our current knowledge with future perspectives. Consequently, the National Agency for Strategic Research in Medical Education (NASR) has launched a Futures Studies Scientific Group in line with its main missions and directing strategic research to align the health higher education system with future changes. To this end, this group will carry out its activities in the following areas:
- Institutionalizing futures studies knowledge and concepts, developing methodology, and applying practical techniques in the field of health higher education.
- Designing and launching an environmental scanning system to continuously monitor changes in the health higher education system, identify future research needs and priorities.
- Studying and analyzing future content to draw future images and scenarios (possible, probable, and desirable). In this regard, trends and driving forces, surprising events, weak signals, perspectives, scenarios, policies, programs, and current actions in the health higher education system will be identified, analyzed, and processed.
- Identifying, launching, and supporting futures studies networks in the health system and higher education.
- Empowering and capacity building of interested researchers in futures studies through webinars, workshops, conferences, and so on.
- Consulting groups, institutions, and organizations in designing and implementing future-oriented plans.
- Holding brainstorming sessions with experts and stakeholders on future topics and priorities of health higher education.
- Producing and transferring knowledge content and scientific discourse in futures studies.