Effective Factors and Strategies to Deal with Scientific Stagnation from the Perspective of Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences Faculty Members: a Qualitative Study

Background and purpose: In universities, the issue of attracting and retaining faculty members is of great importance. If this is not possible for any reason, it can lead to the academic stagnation of academic staff members the loss of motivation in their career path, and interruption in the implementation of their seven duties. Considering the importance of the advancement of academic staff members as educational and research elites of the country and their significant role in training skilled human resources, especially the role of academic staff members of the Ministry of Health and Medical Education in training graduates of medical sciences that are related to the general health of the society, are related, this study was carried out to identify, diagnosing the factors and ways to prevent their scientific stagnation. Materials and methods: This study was conducted with a qualitative method from January to December 2023. In this research, according to the nature of qualitative research, to explain the perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors of the participants, the purposeful sampling method with maximum diversity was used, as well as the snowball sampling method because the goal was to select participants, Which was a rich source of information and helped the researcher to better understand the concept of scientific stagnation. The participants were faculty members who had been faculty members for at least 10 years. In addition to conducting in-depth and semi-structured interviews, upstream documents and the results of similar studies were also examined. Results: In total, 3 themes, 18 categories, and 118 codes were extracted as follows: The main themes of this study are the causes of scientific stagnation, the challenges of the advancement path, and the strategies to prevent scientific stagnation. The theme of scientific stagnation includes 47 codes and 6 categories (individual, organizational, psychological, skill, job, and research factors). The content of the challenges of the promotion path, including 33 codes and 6 categories (the challenges of the path of the promotion regulations, challenges in cultural, educational, research, executive activities, and challenges of examining cases for promotion of scientific rank). The content of the solutions to prevent scientific stagnation includes 38 codes and 6 categories (the solution to prevent scientific stagnation in connection with the regulation of promotion, cultural, educational, research, executive