International university institutions seek to develop scientific research programmes in order to contribute to comprehensive community development. In doing so, it tended to rely on the mechanism of research chairs and invest its research outputs to address life's problems and work towards innovative and creative solutions to them. This helps universities perform their core functions of providing outstanding scientific education, research and serving their communities which helping them to become fourth generation universities. Research chairs have become a global orientation in most of the world's universities, Such as the University of California at United States of America, University of British Columbia at Canada, The study used the comparative approach which is suitable for the nature of the study. The study found a set of findings: Research chairs are one of the most important modern mechanisms in higher education institutions. Research chairs are one of the funding formulas for scientific research. In the light of the results of the study, the researcher has developed a proposed conception to activate the role of research chairs in the transition of Egyptian universities to fourth-generation universities in the light of the experiences of some foreign universities.