ABSTRACT
In the past two decades, scientific publications in Iran has considerably increased in the context of medical science and the number of articles published in ISI journals has doubled from 1997 to 2001. Along with this quantitative development, it is interesting to know whether the researches done have led to a change in service provision and an improvement in the health of the society eventually. The aim of the present study was to examine the behavior of researchers in Tehran University of Medical Sciences about knowledge transfer activities. The other question was which factors could affect the researchers' behavior of knowledge transfer. The samples of study were all Tehran University of Medical Sciences' research projects that had received grants from inside and outside the university in 1383, had registered their contracts, had been finished by the time this study was done [the second half of 1385] and their reports had been sent. of 315 research projects that possessed the inclusion criteria, 301 projects were examined and their respective checklists were completed. The researcher's questionnaire was sent to the principal investigators of the projects and eventually 208 questionnaires were collected. Researchers stated that their passive activities of knowledge transfer to be more in the field of publishing articles. The mean score for researchers' performance in this field was 27% of the total score. The mean score of the researchers' performance in [active] activities was 6% of the total score attainable. The review of 301 research proposals showed that the total cost of the projects under study was a little less than 12 trillion rials, whereas in only 20 projects [6.6%], part of the cost had been provided by organizations outside the university. Among these, only 7 cases [2.3%] had considered costs for research-based knowledge transfer. In spite of the present expectations of knowledge transfer in the world, many academicians still use the methods of research based knowledge dissemination and not implementation. So, if it is necessary to 'connect knowledge to practice', it is also necessary to introduce considerable changes in organizational procedures and encouragement policies [e.g. employment and promotion of academic members]. The organizations themselves need to show commitment to knowledge transfer too. This means that apart from creating the necessary motivation in researchers, methods of implementation such as securing the necessary funds as part of the expenses of research projects and also training of researchers should also be considered