Role of medical universities in promotion of research culture and production of new knowledge

Abstract

One of the important objectives of medical universities is production of new knowledge which is only possible through research. Realizing the importance of knowledge which is going to be an important asset for overall development of the country, Islamic Republic of Iran has given due importance to promotion of research culture in the country. To realize this objective they have given generous funding to the medical universities besides providing them all the opportunities to function independently. At present there are about forty five medical universities in Iran most of which were established after the Islamic Revolution though some of the universities like Tehran, Isfahan and Shiraz has a very old history. Now these medical universities are competing with each other to improve their academic ranking based on published research work. We have had very cordial relations with Isfahan University of Medical Sciences which began when I first visited IUMS couple of years ago. During that visit I had very useful discussions and interaction with many faculty members besides meeting the Vice Chancellor for Research Prof. Payman Adibi. I also had a chance to meet Prof.Roya Kelishadi Prof. of Paediatrics and Director Child Growth and Development Research Center during that visit. I had another chance of meeting her at Shiraz during the COPE conference on Publication Ethic and was immensely impressed with her interest in research and academics. It was during that meeting that we agreed to publish a special issue of Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences for Isfahan University of Medical Sciences which was published in March 2012.1 IUMS Governing Body has played a vital role in promoting research culture and inculcating the spirit to do research among the students, postgraduates and faculty members of IUMS over the last many years. It has not only decentralized the whole research administrative set up actively involving the various faculties but also allowed them to approve research projects related to their respective disciplines. However, it is emphasized that each and every research proposal, project must end up in a publication in a peer reviewed medical journal. Faculty members were trained in research by organizing workshops on research methodology and Medical Writing besides increasing the number of biomedical journals published by the university so that they can publish their work. Not only that, distinguished researchers were recognized, honoured and awarded. The university organizes an annual Research Day for this purpose.2 It worked wonders and has paid dividends. Bureau of Scientific Resources and Research Publications has built a team which is extremely important for research and academic activities in today’s world when integration and collaboration between different disciplines is essential. This is the second special issue of Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences showcasing the research work being done by the faculty of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences. It was agreed that a team of senior academicians at IUMS will first review the manuscripts before forwarding them to us for further processing. Hence we received fifty five manuscripts for publication in this special supplement. They were all first screened for plagiarism, and then went through another review before they were finally accepted. One of the manuscripts was later withdrawn by the authors, two were dropped because of plagiarism, twelve others were not accepted for further processing because either they had many deficiencies or were more suitable for local publication as we thought they won’t be of interest to our readers. Out of these forty, twelve required extensive editing to improve the English language and Grammar while a few needed minor corrections. Some of the manuscripts included in this issue contain state of the art research Corresspondence: