Iran press/ Iran news: Scientific and technological backwardness of Iran in the Pahlavi era was irritating for proud Iranians who have a rich history, a great culture and one of the oldest civilizations in the world.
To overcome this backwardness, advancement in modern sciences and technologies and building a new Islamic civilization became the essential goals of the Islamic Revolution in Iran.
Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, the Leader of Islamic revolution in past couple of years, put the focus on science output and brought up issues like 'Software Movement' or 'Scientific Jihad' and provided proper ground for advancement in science and new technologies.
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Nearly 70 percent of the adult population of Iran was illiterate before the Islamic Revolution and less than 40 percent of Iranian children were able to go to school. However, the literacy figure today is close to 100 percent -- a remarkable achievement of the Islamic revolution.
Due to the importance of science and knowledge in Islam, establishing the 'Literacy Movement Organization of Iran' is one good example of action taken after Islamic Revolution in Iran to eradicate illiteracy. Through this organization, illiterate adults could manage to learn and come to higher education classes; obtained proficiency and skills that changed their course of their lives for good.
Before Islamic Revolution, there was 47 thousand schools in Iran, now there are more than 100 thousand schools; before Islamic Revolution, there were 154 thousand students in a limited number of universities or collages in Iran that were only in big cities around the country; now 119 universities and higher education institutions, 295 private universities, 550 Payam-e-nour universities, 385 Azad universities, 739 applied higher education centers and 274 technical and professional centers and teacher training centers are active in Iran.
Around four and a half million students are studying in these centres that shows a 29-fold increase since the victory of Islamic revolution. Until 1979, there were 396 scientific fields in Iran's universities; now, there are more than 3000 scientific fields.
Scimago Institutions Rankings
- Iran's global rank in science output has gone up from 53 to 16
- Iran's global rank in science output in Atomic Energy field has risen from 83 to 11
- Iran's global rank in science output in Nano-science and Nanotechnology fields has risen from 57 to 16
- Iran's global rank in science output in Biotechnology field has gone up from 56 to 14
- Iran's global rank in science output in Aerospace Engineering has gone up from 43 to 11
- Iran's global rank in science output in Medicine has risen from 54 to 19
- Iran's global rank in science output in Chemistry has risen from 48 to 11
Islamic Republic of Iran was amongst 25 leading nations for science output in the world in 2017, and having 8/9 percent increase, obtained the first rank in science growth. According to Scimago Institutions Rankings (SIR) that ranked more than 5,000 research institutions and universities from across the world, Iran ranked first in Physics and Astronomy in Western Asia and 13th in the world.
Iran's Minister of Science, Research and Technology Mansour Gholami announced on 24 December 2018 that the Islamic Republic is ranked 16th in terms of scientific production and 1st in terms of scientific growth in the world.
The report added that Iran has outpaced Saudi Arabia, Israel (Occupied Palestine), Turkey, Egypt, the UAE, Iraq, Qatar, Jordan, Lebanon, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait, Palestine, Yemen and Syria in nanotechnology in the Middle-East in 2017.
In last 20 years, seven Islamic countries were amongst 50 superior countries in science output; Iran was 16th in this ranking.
According to the data centre figures, registered scientific articles in last 20 years have grown from 983 documents in 1997 to 49696 documents till to the end of 2017 that shows 50-fold increase.
Also in January 2008, 'The Nature Index' reported that "Islamic Republic of Iran in last decade, has experienced 22 percent annual growth rate and in comparison to other countries, Iran had biggest scientific leap in science and technical-engineering fields and ranks first in science and technical-engineering fields in the world".
Increase in Iran's share in new technologies
Iran's share in development of new technologies like bio, Nano, Cognitive Sciences, renewable energies, aerospace, microelectronics and Stem cells has considerably increased. Iran has already owned 5/7 percent of global Nano science in the world.
Citing to Iran's development in Nano technology, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, the Leader of the Islamic Revolution stressed that "in some new sciences like Nanotechnology, no one has helped us and will not help in future; we have advanced in this field thanks to our youth, our scientists and researchers tireless efforts and achieved incredible progress".
He continued that "Regretfully, because of hegemony of other countries in Iran in the past, there was a backwardness in science we have to catch up and retrieve it. This point of progress must not satisfy us, we have long way to reach the ideal place."
Referring to increasing growth of knowledge-based companies in new technologies, Hassan Rouhani, the president of Islamic Republic of Iran in his speech in Islamic countries organization meeting in Astana in September 2017 said "export of products of medium and high tech has increased from 1/5 billion dollars to 12/1 billion dollars".
Domestic technological know-how of building and launching satellite
One of most remarkable scientific achievements of Islamic Republic of Iran is building and launching of satellites.
Iranian president Hassan Rounahi said on 10 January 2019, that his country will soon launch satellites into the space and will continue with its aerospace program despite warnings of more economic and political isolation by the United States.
Head of the Iranian Space Agency (ISA), Morteza Berari said "Iran is among top 9 countries that have achieved full space cycle and now, we are in transition process from research satellites to operational ones which shows strength or Iranian scientists and researchers".
Becoming a member of the global space club is another achievement for Iran after the Islamic Revolution. Only a handful of countries have space science and technology and Islamic Republic of Iran is currently one of them. In recent years, satellites and satellite carriers have been designed, manufactured, and launched into orbit.
Islamic Republic of Iran is one of 5 emerging space nations; due to strategic and undeniable role for satellites in modern world, this technology provides vast facilities and options for humanity. Satellites are also known as third eye of countries and those who lack this technology, are in a sense "blind" nations.
On October 21, 2018, Head of the Iranian Space Agency said that the Islamic Republic, along with the United States, Russia, some European countries and Canada, are among the world's top nine satellite makers.
Successful launch of a live animal into space, launching communications and remote sensing satellites and also launching astronomical observatories network are other achievements of Iranian scientists in the last decade. 212/ 211/103
Written by: Seyyed Razi Emadi
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