TEHRAN – Despite U.S. sanctions, the international activities of Iranian scientists have increased year by year, so that more than 35 percent of Iranian articles in Scopus have been multi-national projects, Peyman Salehi, the deputy science minister, has said.

He made the remarks at the COMSTECH (the Ministerial Standing Committee on Scientific and Technological Cooperation of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation) ceremony on Saturday.

Science diplomacy is the use of scientific collaborations among nations to address common problems and build constructive international partnerships.

In 2021, Iranian scientists published more than 77,000 scientific articles in the Scopus database, so that, Iran has been ranked 15th in science production, he said, IRNA reported.

The country also ranked 15th and 16th in the world in terms of scientific references, he added.

In 2011, the share of Iranian articles with international participation was about 16.5 percent, which increased to 34.2 percent in 2021. Pointing to the history of Iran's scientific activities in the past two decades, Salehi said that Iran ranked 56th in science production in 1996 and ranked 15th in 2021. Accordingly, we are leading the region in science production.

Out of a total of 77,000 articles published by Iranian scientists in the Scopus database last year, 35.7 percent were related to international joint activities. Despite the sanctions, the amount of joint scientific activities of Iranian researchers has increased every year.

Iranian scientists are not limited by geographical and political borders, and apart from multi-national projects, the increase in Iranian researchers’ citations also proves this issue.

Referring to research centers, institutes, and science and technology hubs, he highlighted that in the past years, with the establishment of 240 innovation centers, as well as 49 science and technology parks, we have launched a complete roadmap to transform science into technology.

Science diplomacy at the highest level

Data from the Scopus International Citation Database show that Iran’s scientific diplomacy has reached more than 34 percent since the beginning of 2021, the highest level in the past 20 years.

Science diplomacy is the use of scientific collaborations among nations to address common problems and build constructive international partnerships. It is a form of new diplomacy and has become an umbrella term to describe a number of formal or informal technical, research-based, academic, or engineering exchanges, within the general field of international relations.

Comparing the rate of 2020 with 2019, Iran with a growth of 12.5 percent and with a slight difference from India has gained second place in the world in terms of the growth of world science diplomacy, Mohammad Javad Dehghani, head of the Islamic World Science Citation Center (ISC), said.

In 2011, the share of Iranian articles with international participation was about 16.5 percent, which increased to 19.7 percent in 2016 and gradually in the following years, so that in 2020 and 2021, reached 30.5 and 34.2 percent, respectively, he added.

The share of Iranian articles with international participation has had significant growth of 209 percent during an eight-year period (2013-2020), becoming the Islamic world’s leading country in science diplomacy, according to the Scopus International Citation Database.

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