TEHRAN - Iranian vice president for scientific and technological affairs has said research should be free from governmental funding.

“We should not allow the country’s research sector run on oil revenues,” Sorena Sattari said, ISNA reported on Wednesday.

A change in approach to research entails cultural work, which is bound not so much to financial resources as to “novel innovations”, he said.

Sattari also said, “The only way to fight brain drain is to make research pay.”

“It is fortunate that the idea that research can be money-making has become prevalent in the country.”

SP/OS