TEHRAN – Over the past year, 18 articles published by Iranian researchers have been cited by Scopus International Citation Database, compared with a total of 101 during the past 40 years.

Deputy science minister Peyman Salehi said international citation indexes include Web of Science, Thomson Reuters Journal Citation Reports, Web of Knowledge, and Scopus, IRNA reported.

In July, Salehi said 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.

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.

The share of Iranian articles with international participation has had significant growth of 209 percent during 2013-2020.

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

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.

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.

MG