Modern Universities and Establishment: The Interactions of Islamic Azad University and Iran’s Power Centers

Abstract To examine the ways in which the Islamic Azad University interacts with the power centers in order to cooperate, constructivist school and power-knowledge theory have been used as a theoretical framework. In this research, scientific cooperation is emphasized instead of commercialization of scientific researches in Iran and in the Islamic Azad University. The role of the university is to organize cultural frameworks and to introduce them to the system for planning. Islamic Azad University pursues the interests of power centers to strengthen the system, expand knowledge and promote cultural values. The power centers combine the activity and the type of sovereignty with the prevailing culture in the universities and seminaries, where the scientific and religious teachings are involved in the process of legitimizing the dominant political system. The interaction of the Islamic Azad University with power centers through mutual and shared understanding, identifying the potentials and capacities of each other, in general, would meet the needs of both parties, improve functions of the organizations, maintain scientific independence and develop the university’s financial resources and, in particular, lead to the participation of members of university in the development of the country and the preservation of the political system in large-scale decision-making, assisting socialization and urban management and ultimately maintaining the human and physical assets of the Islamic Azad University