Identifying and Ranking Criteria for Selection of the Knowledge-Based Plans Using Hybrid Fuzzy ANP-DEMATEL Method

Now-a-days, the globalization approach can be clearly observed in countries' movement toward the knowledge-based economy. It is inevitable to support knowledge-based institutions and companies in order to realize the expected goals including development of science and technology, meeting the domestic industries' needs and moving toward a knowledge-based economy. For this purpose, the main priorities include paying attention to existing and potentials sciences and technologies and leading the potentials towards the economic values. Creating the economic values based on the science and technology, the economy of the country would gradually move from an oil-dependent economy toward a knowledge-based economy which in turn results in less dependency to natural perishable recourses. This study aims at identifying and determining the importance of the effective criteria in evaluation of the knowledge-based plans for investment using Multiple Decision Making Methods, Analytic Network Process (ANP), DEMATEL and Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and an appropriate combination of methods we call in this paper as hybrid Fuzzy ANP-DEMATEL-AHP. In this regard, the effective criteria determined based on the experts’ opinions and the literature were divided into 7 main criteria and 39 sub-criteria. Then, the hybrid fuzzy ANPDEMATEL method and the fuzzy AHP method were applied to calculate weight of the main criteria and the subcriteria, respectively.