Science growth in Iran over the past 35 years.

BACKGROUND: This study was carried out to evaluate activities in different branches of science in Iran compared to other countries over the past 35 years.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: Essential Science Indicators (ESI) and Web of Science from (Thomson Reuters ISI) and SCImago Journal & Country Rank (SJR) were searched for scientometrics data. ESI indicated place of Iran among other countries in all 22 scientific categories based on the publication and citation rates. SJR parameters, such as publication rate, citable publications, citation rate, citations per publication and the H-index were used to record the rank of Iran among the world's countries.
RESULTS: A progressive quantitative and qualitative growth of Iranian publications was evident. The field of chemistry in Iran was the most prolific in terms of the number of publications (16982) whereas economics and business was the least prolific (156). A growth in the quality of works of Iranian authors was evident by gaining higher H-index in the recent years.
CONCLUSIONS: If this scientific growth of Iran continues, it would not be surprising to see Iran as one of the most powerful countries in the field of science in the World.

INTRODUCTION

Progress in science and technology is a key driver of social development all over the world. Investing in research and development is a top priority for most developed and developing countries. As recently reviewed, Iran allocates around 0.5% of its gross domestic product (GDP) to research and development, which is of course less than that of some industrialized countries on average of 1.4%.[1]

Though scientometric indicators, such as publication and citation rates, are not specific enough, these are increasingly used for analyzing scientific activities and their relationship with economics and social development. Research output measures such as publication and citation rates differ between various fields of science, universities and nations. The quantity and quality of articles indexed by sound databases are important for a country's contribution to science and its status in international academic rankings.

To ascertain place of Iran and its growth trend in science, scientometric analysis of relevant databases was conducted.

METHODS

We used the term “Iran” to search through online databases. Web of Science (ISI) was searched over the period of 1975-2010.[2] Information on top authors, institutions, subject areas, and journals was extracted from ISI, as well as publication number, citations, citation per paper, and H-index for Iran year by year. Parameters of a total of 233 countries were analyzed based on the SCImago Journal & Country Rank (SJR)[3] for number of publications, citable publications, citations, self-citations, citation per publication, and the H-index for all 233 countries. By use of Essential Science Indicators (ESI), 10 years activities of the world top countries in 22 subject categories were specified.[4] These included chemistry, engineering, clinical medicine, physics, plant and animal sciences, materials science, mathematics, biology/biochemistry, pharmacology/ toxicology, agricultural sciences, computer science, geoscience, environmental/ecology, social sciences/general, neuroscience/behavior, molecular biology/genetics, microbiology, immunology, psychiatry/ psychology, multidisciplinary, space science, and economics/business.

RESULTS

Given the ISI data, it was apparent that scientific productivity in Iran has substantially improved over the past decade, with a record of 20610 publications indexed in 2010. The same trend of growth was obvious in number of citations, and H-index (Table 1).

Table 1

A trend of growth in Iran based on the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI)

As shown in table 2, Tehran University with a total of 12462 published articles tops the list of Iranian academic institutions, followed by Sharif University of Technology (8047 articles). Table 3 lists top 15 journals indexed by ISI where most Iranian papers were published. Asian journal of chemistry with 850 published papers was on the top followed by other international journals. Table 4 presents SJR country ranking taking into account cumulative data over the period of 1996-2010. Iran with a total of 118396 papers, 115044 citable publications, 434990 citations, 7.20 citations per paper, and the H-index of 101 took the 31st place among 233 countries. According to ESI (Table 5), chemistry was the most productive field of science in Iran with 16982 papers listed in ISI, followed by engineering (12145) and clinical medicine (9740). Economics and business was the least productive field with only 156 papers.

Table 2

Top 15 Iranian Universities based on scientific productivity according to the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI)

Table 3

Journals where most Iranian papers were published according to the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI)

Table 4

The rank of Iran among 233 countries of the world sorted by H-index based on Scientific Journal Rankings (SJR)

Table 5

Ranking of different subject categories in Iran based on Essential Science Indicators (ESI)

DISCUSSION

Iran is a country with bright history of science and rich scientific culture.[1] Over the past decades, despite numerous socioeconomic difficulties, most branches of Iranian science have flourished. Indeed, available scientometric evidences indicated growth in scientific production.[5] Osareh and Marefat evaluated Iran's scientometrics in Medline between 1976-2003 and concluded a significant growth especially during 1990-2003.[6] In another report, Iranian articles in three different fields of ISI was evaluated between 1993-2002, and a major growth was found.[7] The same results was found in the field of medicine in another study.[8] In a recent essay written by Abdollahi (2011), various reports of international scientometric societies were reviewed and a major record in the world science growth was found for Iran as 736 papers in 1996 reached 13238 papers in 2008.[9] Iran with a rank of 31 in the world has the second rank after Turkey among its neighbors and the eight in whole Asia. Fortunately, the quality of Iranian publications have been also increased.

We authors of the present paper believe that scientific growth of Iran is mainly related to the thoughts of policy makers in paying more attention to science and technology and allocating more budget to developing human resources and infrastructure. In the essay published in European Science editing in 2006,[10] the author related the growth of science in Iran to several reasons such as larger allocation of budget to scientific research sector, increase in the number of graduates and assistant professors over the recent years, and the requirement of students to complete their study with publication or patenting or creating a product. Of course, in the last years, the subject of science editing has been dramatically improved. Most of Iranian journals are now managed by expert editors who know the procedures of improvement the quality of publications such as indexing, online journal management systems, peer review, etc. Now, many of Iranian journals are covered by Scopus, MedLine/PubMed, Web of Science. Meanwhile, the number of Iranian editors who have become member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), World Association of Medical Journal Editors (WAME), and European Association of Science Editors (EASE) has increased dramatically. In addition, some of them are managing the mentioned committees at higher stages.

Iranian scientists have been very productive in several experimental fields such as pharmacology/toxicology, chemistry, physic, computer, engineering, and clinical medicine. Iranian researchers have gained international reputations since the 1990s and some of them are listed among 1% top scientists of the world as reported by ESI. Highly expensive instruments especially for high technology researches have been provided in Iranian universities during the past two decades. In addition, many inventions have been registered in Iran in the last 5 years showing a dramatic increase in comparison with the past.[11] Considering the growth rate of science in Iran, it would not be surprising to see Iran as one of the most powerful countries in the field of science in the world.