Future Studies Group
Today, rapid changes in technological, social, economic, political, environmental, and ethical domains pose a serious threat to the future and functions of healthcare systems. Health higher education as one the most pivotal functions in the healthcare systems has always been affected by these changes and, at present, is dealing with a wide range of needs and challenges in interaction with other domains. In the past, traditional planning could control some of these changes. However, this is more difficult in today's world with more complex functions and intricate systems, requiring efficient thinking and reasoning, proper understanding of instabilities, and prediction of future possibilities. All this highlights the necessity of future studies in this domain. Future studies, as a mixture of knowledge and art, seeks to envision a desirable future by discovering and identifying the opportunities ahead. Evidently, recognizing and architecturing the future of health higher education depend on numerous components and bold measures which are essential to link our current knowledge to its future vistas. Accordingly, NASR has established the Future Studies Group in line with its mission in an attempt to steer strategic research to coordinate health higher education with future evolutionary changes. To this end, this group pursues the following activities:
- Institutionalizing the knowledge and concepts of future studies, developing approriate methodologies, and implementing practical techniques in health higher education
- Designing and implementing an environmental scanning system for continuous monitoring and supervision of changes in health higher education to identify future research needs and priorities
- Studying and analyzing the future trends (possible, probable, optimal) in line with portraying future scenarios of the health higher education. Accordingly, future-forming trends, extraordinary events, poor signs and indicators, vistas, scenarios, policies, current programs and measures of the health higher education are identified, analyzed, and processed.
- Identifying, establishing, and supporting future studies networks in the healthcare system and higher education
- Empowering and developing the capacity of researchers interested in future studies through webinars, workshops, conferences, etc.
- Offering counseling services to groups, institutions, and organizations to design and implement future studies projects
- Holding meetings with experts on the topics and priorities of health higher education
- Developing and imparting knowledge content of the future studies and promoting scientific discourse in the healthcare system and higher education