It is being said that scientific growth in Iran has been fastest in the world, even more than China.
Do you think Iran would have developed faster if it did not have anti-American anti-Zionist policies?
Or do you think this growth is in response to American sanctions?
Or is this growth unrelated to it?
But whatever the reason, it is commendable that the country has achieved this even at the worst possible sanctions from the most powerful and most influential country in the world.
A 2010 report by Canadian research firm Science-Metrix has put Iran in the top rank globally in terms of growth in scientific productivity with a 14.4 growth index followed by South Korea with a 9.8 growth index.[126] Iran’s growth rate in science and technology is 11 times more than the average growth of the world’s output in 2009 and in terms of total output per year, Iran has already surpassed the total scientific output of countries like Sweden, Switzerland, Israel, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Austria or that of Norway.[127][128][129] Iran with a science and technology yearly growth rate of 25% is doubling its total output every three years and at this rate will reach the level of Canadian annual output in 2017.
It might be the Chinese year of the tiger, but scientifically, 2010 is looking like Iran’s year.
Scientific output has grown 11 times faster in Iran than the world average, faster than any other country. A survey of the number of scientific publications listed in the Web of Science database shows that growth in the Middle East – mostly in Turkey and Iran – is nearly four times faster than the world average.
Science-Metrix, a data-analysis company in Montreal, Canada, has published a detailed report (PDF) on “geopolitical shifts in knowledge creation” since 1980. “Asia is catching up even more rapidly than previously thought, Europe is holding its position more than most would expect, and the Middle East is a region to watch,” says the report’s author, Eric Archambault.
World scientific output grew steadily, from 450,000 papers a year in 1980 to 1,500,000 in 2009. Asia as a whole surpassed North America last year.
Nuclear, nuclear, nuclear
Archambaut notes that Iran’s publications have emphasised inorganic and nuclear chemistry, nuclear and particle physics and nuclear engineering. Publications in nuclear engineering grew 250 times faster than the world average – although medical and agricultural research also increased.
