Research, in general, has its own challenges. Part of these challenges is due to its nature and requirements for conducting it. All research challenges have two dimensions: methodology and management. These challenges get more critical when we deal with and conduct qualitative research. As a result of these challenges with qualitative studies, there have been delays in using this research approach in different academic disciplines and applying it in addressing educational, social, and cultural research questions in many universities and higher education institutions. These challenges include: (1) Researcher-related challenges which refer to most researchers' lack of motivation, preparation and required skills for conducting qualitative research; (2) Research participants-related Challenges which refer to unwillingness of most research participants to have a close face-to-face relationship with researcher, as a critical factor for conducting qualitative research, and their preference to remain unanimous due to feeling of insecurity. This makes it difficult for qualitative researcher to develop such a relationship with research participants; and (3) Referee-related challenges which refer to the fact that most referees and evaluators with almost no qualitative research background usually use their "quantitative glasses" in assessing qualitative academic research proposals and reports and regard most characteristics of qualitative research, such as flexibility, subjectivity, evolving and emerging process, negatively. They usually use such criteria as a well-predefined research process or a well-predetermined research plan and study results and outcomes which are not the criteria appropriate to assess quality in qualitative studies. Considering the recent expansion and growth of qualitative research projects and realization of its importance and appropriateness in addressing most research questions in Iranian universities and research institutes, a survey was conducted with a sample of Iranian university faculty members as well as researchers from public research centers to identify the challenges of qualitative studies in Iranian academic environments and to propose mechanisms for dealing with these challenges more effectively. This survey was followed by unstructured interviews with a selected number of authorities responsible for making research policies in Ministry of science, Research, and Technology in order to find out if and how they consider the identified challenges in their policy-making efforts. Findings indicated that challenges in Iranian universities and research institutes are more than expected because in addition to those which are common in overseas academic environments, these institutions in Iran are suffering from some unnecessary challenges which are not that easy to deal with. Based on the findings, some practical solutions were recommended to deal with challenges more effectively.
