Jointly published by Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest
and Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht
Scientometrics,
Vol. 61, No. 1 (2004) 79–88
Basic science in the Islamic Republic of Iran
MORTEZA MEHRDAD,a,b AKBAR HEYDARI,a,c MOHAMMAD NABI SARBOLOUKI,a,d
SHAPOUR ETEMADa
a
Scientometry Group, Ministry of Science Research and Technology, Tehran( Iran)
b
Department of Phytochemistry, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran (Iran)
c Chemistry Department, Tarbiat Modarres University, Tehran (Iran)
d Institute of Biochemistry & Biophysics, Tehran University, Tehran (Iran)
The population of Iran has nearly doubled in less than 25 years, while the number of university
students has increased more than 10 times and 720 Ph. D. degrees have been awarded in basic
science in the past 10 years. Despite the great difficulties that the Iranian scientists have been
facing for more than two decades (as a consequence of a social revolution, 8 years of a destructive
war imposed by Iraq, excessive brain drain, discriminatory practices by some international journals
in publishing the Iranian articles, and unfair sanctions imposed by the industrialized countries)
Iran’s science is still thriving and the current number of yearly scientific publications exceeds
1500. When normalized with respect to the number of researchers and the research budget, the
Iranian scientists seem to outperform most of their counterparts in the advanced industrialized
nations. Main reason: total engagement in truncated research activities (basic or applied) leading
solely to pure publications; lack of infrastructure for developmental research activities leading to
new technologies. The average impact factor of the papers in various fields of basic science seems
quite satisfactory considering the difficult conditions the Iranian scientists are working under.
Should the research budgets and conditions improve and the unfair sanctions currently imposed by
the world politics be eliminated, a far better contribution to the world science can be expected.
Introduction
The oil producing ancient country of Iran (current population over 69 millions –
65% under the age of 25) has been on the world news headlines for the past two
decades because of her popular Islamic revolution, break up of the diplomatic relation
with the U. S., the 8 year (1981–1989) defensive war against the Iraqi invasion, her
non-aligned uncompromising political stance, and her continued political discourse with
the advanced industrialized nations (especially the U. S.). Under these circumstances
most of other important aspects of the Iranian society including her scientific status
have remained enigmatic to the outside world, leading to all sorts of speculative
Received April 2, 2004
Address for correspondence:
MORTEZA MEHRDAD
Department of Phytochemistry, Shahid Beheshti University
P. O. Box 19835-389, Tehran, Iran
E-mail: [email protected]
0138–9130/2004/US $ 20.00
Copyright © 2004 Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest
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M. MEHRDAD et al.: Basic science in Iran
announcements ranging from “marvelous” to “disastrous”. We, hereby wish to present a
first hand scientometric appraisal of the country’s science status in light of her actual
realities.
The first Western style university (Tehran University) was established in 1934 and
by 1979 prior to the revolution there were about 30 universities and higher educational
institutions throughout the country, most of them being in Tehran and other major
cities. Revolution took place in 1979 and the universities were practically closed for
nearly 2 years (1980–1982, during revolution and the period of the so called Cultural
Revolution). The destructive 8 year war imposed by the Iraqi inversion lasted from
1980 to 1988. Naturally these conditions caused a severe brain drain with severe
negative impacts on the nation’s future development.
Extension and expansion of universities and research institutions occurred mostly
after the war. Currently there are more than 50 state universities, and nearly 150 nonprivate technical undergraduate schools that enroll about 750,000 students. There are
also about 60 research institutions throughout the country making their contribution to
the nation’s science output. Since 1984 there has started an extensive private university
system (mostly undergraduate) throughout the country that enrolls an approximately
equal number of full time students. Altogether these make a student body that is almost
10 times the pre-revolution period (while the population has nearly doubled since).
The present article deals only with the status of basic science in the state universities
and research institutions which operate under the auspices of the Ministry of Science,
Research and Technology (MSRT). Medical science universities and medical research
centers are under the auspices of the Health, Education and Welfare Ministry, while
some other state research institutions and a group of mostly undergraduate technical/
professional schools are funded and managed by other ministries in order to train their
own specialists. Table 1 summarizes some of the relevant information regarding the
current state of affair in basic science in universities under the MSRT. Offering of the
Ph.D. programs started first in 1985 at the chemistry department of Shiraz University
(formerly Pahlavi). The current research budget is at best estimated to be about 0.4% of
the gross domestic product (GDP).
Table 1. Some basic information regarding the state of basic science
in universities under the MSRT
Staff members holding Ph. D. degree
80
13,750
Total number of Ph. D. graduates in past 10 years
720
Chemistry
Physics
Mathematics
Biosciences
Geosciences
242
109
258
73
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Work conditions
One of the hard realities about the Iranian scientific community is the fact that Iran
does not have the extensive technological/industrial infrastructure required to produce
most of its scientific equipment/materials needs and they ought to be imported. Thus,
events that occurred during the revolution and the subsequent 8 years of the imposed
war by Iraq have had tragic consequences. For example it is very hard and sometimes
impossible for the Iranian scientists to obtain radio-labeled compounds that are so
readily available to molecular biologists/geneticists everywhere throughout the world.
Quite often, even when all clearances are issued by the international agencies, delays
are so long that the materials arrive in an unsuitable state. At times such practices go so
extreme that the suppliers decline from dealing with Iran, the well known publishers
(like the Scientific American) stop the delivery of the popular science journals to their
subscribers, or the scientific organizations (like the American Chemical Society) halt
delivery of prepaid scientific magazines to the long time members.1 There are also
limitations on the Iranians access to many of the internet sources that are freely
available elsewhere. In recent years the Iranian scientists have been experiencing an
undue biased conditions in publishing their scientific articles in some prestigious
international journals2 and there have been extremely discouraging conditions for their
participation in international conferences (very strict and sometimes discriminatory visa
practices) and even worse facing intolerable conditions when they apply for visa for
sabbatical leaves or for collaborative research projects in the international arena.
Chronicle and analysis
Quantitative approach
The approach taken here is to study the yearly number of science documents as
chronicled by credible international data banks like the Institute for Scientific
Information (ISI) – Web of Science3 – along with those of the domestic sources as
MSRT’s scientometry group. The articles were selected on the basis of having Iran as
its address (this would include collaborative papers as well). It should be emphasized
however, that the articles indexed in such sources represent only part of the total
national science output because, as in other non-English nations, many quality articles
appear in the domestic periodicals written in the local (Farsi) vernacular, which
obviously are not considered in the international data banks.
Figure 1 shows the overall trend in the total number of articles published yearly in
the international periodicals during the period 1975–2002.3 As expected the initial
upward trend prior to the revolution came to a halt during revolution, followed by a
downward trend during the 8-year war and a rather gradual and subsequent steep
recovery after the ceasefire, which still continues.
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Figure 1. The trend in the annual number of Iranian science documents in the period 1975–2002
Figure 2 compares Iran with her neighbors and some other Islamic nations.4
Obviously the figures are miniscule compared to those of the industrialized countries
with comparable population like Germany and Great Britain (population 100 and 60
millions respectively).
Figure 2. Iran’s rank (in terms of science documents) among her neighbors and some other Islamic nations
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This is not unexpected when considering that 65% of the population is below the age of
25 and realizing the fact that the Iranian Ph. D. programs are mostly less than 10 years
old. Table 2 summarizes the information regarding Iran’s stand in various fields of basic
science.
Comparison may be more meaningful when the data are normalized with respect to
each nation’s population, or even better with respect to the number of scientists and the
research budget in each country (Table 3). Because the former suffers from the
drawback that the age groups and social sectors are quite different in each country (65%
of Iranian population is below the age of 25%), while the latter faces the problem with
regard to the definition of “scientist” and the real budgets in different countries.
Table 2. Iran’s performance in various fields of basic science in the period 1992–2003
Field
Total no. documents
Chemistry
Physics
Mathematics
Biosciences
Geosciences
2794
1030
437
242
187
Percent of total national
output
30.7
11.3
4.8
2.7
2.1
World rank
40
53
48
61
53
Table 3. Iran’s performance in production of science documents in comparison
with the advanced industrial nations
Country
Researchers per
million population
Iran
Italy
UK
France
Germany
USA
Japan
700
3200
3650
5000
6000
7600
7600
Documents per
million population
35
457
950
652
660
708
500
Research budget
GDP %
0.4
1.3
2.3
2.4
2.8
2.6
3.1
Documents
per researcher
per 1% GDP
0.12
0.11
0.13
0.054
0.04
0.036
0.021
* Raw data from Scientific American Aug. 2001 and Scientometry Group, MSRT Iran
As can be seen Iran which ranks 4th among the Islamic countries in terms of
publication output, seems to outperform the advanced industrialized nations! Such a
misleading conclusion may be true for all the developing nations that lack an
autonomous developmental infrastructure. While probably two thirds of the research
force in the industrial nations are engaged in developmental activities that lead to
patents and new technologies, almost all of the researchers in developing countries (due
to conditions noted) are merely doing research for its own sake, thereby producing only
scientific publications while rarely doing research with regard to innovative products or
development of new technologies!
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Qualitative approach
The most straightforward method for doing a qualitative study is to consider the
average impact factor (IF) of the articles in various fields and compare them with their
corresponding world average values. This was done by recording the IF of each
individual article, computing their total in each field and dividing the latter by the total
number of the respective articles to obtain the average IF.5 Figure 3 shows the average
IF value of the Iranian articles (in the year 2000) in various fields in comparison with
the world average values. As can be seen on the average, the quality of the Iranian
publications seems superior only in physics and inferior in the rest. The reason for
physics superior performance is that there has been more international research
collaborations in this filed compared to others.
Figure 3. Comparison of the average of the IF of Iranian papers is various fields with those
of the world IF in the year 2000
A better way of exhibiting the quality of publications is through their impact factor
distribution curves, Figures 4-9. In these representations, the number of articles in each
field are plotted against their respective IF values (the world average shown by a star).
As can be seen, the distributions are quite erratic and in most cases the majority of the
articles appear below the world average.
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Figure 4. Distribution of Iranian papers by the IF of the publishing journals. Chemistry, 2001
Figure 5. Total IF of Iranian papers by subfield. Chemistry, 2001
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Figure 6. Distribution of Iranian papers by the IF of the publishing journals. Physics, 2001
Figure 7. Total IF of Iranian papers by subfield. Physics, 2001
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Figure 8. Distribution of Iranian papers by the IF of the publishing journals. Mathematics, 2001
Figure 9. Total IF of Iranian papers by subfield. Mathematics, 2001
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Altogether it is clear that despite all the impediments briefly mentioned, the Iranian
science has made significant strides in recent years. However, further progress is needed
to bring Iran to the rank it truly deserves. This, of course, can be achieved if the various
limitations such as low research budgets, and the unfair international limitations that are
blindly imposed on the Iranian scientists are eliminated. Scientists all over the world
serve the same cause, i. e., improvement of the social welfare and global economy. Any
condition that would lead to deprivation of scientists of a nation from having fair access
to the tools of their practice is simply an outright prejudice and an impediment to the
world scientific progress and as such, should be condemned by all who cherish science
and the scientific progress.
Conclusions
The population of Iran has doubled since the revolution of 1979, while the numbers
of universities have more than doubled and their students have increased by more than
10 times. Ever since the establishment of the Ph. D. programs, nearly 10 years ago,
about 720 Ph. D. degrees have been awarded in all fields of basic science. The trends in
the yearly number of scientific publications perfectly reflect the social episodes in past
25 years. Currently the yearly number of publications exceeds 1500 and is of lower than
average quality. When normalized with respect to the number of researchers and the
research budget, the Iranian scientists seem to outperform their counterparts in the
advanced industrialized nations. This is explained by the absence of developmental
research that leads to new technologies and total engagement of all researchers in
truncated research (basic or applied). The quality of papers, as evidenced by the average
impact factors in various fields, seems satisfactory considering the difficult conditions
the Iranian scientists are under. Should the local conditions improve, and unfair
practices and sanctions currently imposed on Iranian scientists in the international arena
lifted; major contributions from the Iranian scientists to the world science will surely
ensue.
References
1. M. N. SARBOLUKI, M. MEHRDAD. A. HEYDARI, Iran Daily, 9th Mordad, p. 9, 1380, (2001); Hamshahri
Daily, 11th Day, p. 15, 1380, (2001); Hamshahri Daily, 12th Day, p. 23, 1380, (2001).
2. D. N. RAHNI, Economic sanction go too far, Chemical & Engineering News, 81 (50) (2003) 2.
W. G. SCHULZ, Securing human rights: Network of scientific societies are poised to come to the aid of
imperiled colleagues, Chemical & Engineering News, 81 (47) (2003) 21–24.
3. INSTITUTE FOR SCIENTIFIC INFORMATION, Web of Knowledge (http:// access.isiproducts.com/trials).
4. INSTITUTE FOR SCIENTIFIC INFORMATION, National Science Indicators, Deluxe on Discette, The Institute
for Scientific Information, Philadelphia, 2001.
5. INSTITUTE FOR SCIENTIFIC INFORMATION, Journal Citation Reports, Science Edition. The Institute for
Scientific Information, Philadelphia, 2001.
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