TEHRAN –The researchers of the Sharif University of Technology won first place in the 15th International Social Robotics Conference (ICSR) 2023.

ICSR 2023 took place in Doha, Qatar, as a face-to-face conference on December 3-7, IRIB reported.

This was the first time that the conference was hosted in West Asia and North Africa region.

Professors and researchers in social robotics fields from 20 countries including Iran, America, Canada, Japan, England, Switzerland, Germany, Spain, Qatar, Italy, Australia, Singapore, the Netherlands, France, South Korea, and some other countries participated in the prestigious conference.

In different parts of the conference, in addition to presenting the latest findings in the form of scientific articles, a competition is held to evaluate the best ideas and designs in the social robotics field.

This year, the social-cognitive robotics research core of Sharif University of Technology had active participation in the conference, 3 accepted essays in the articles section, and a design in the competition section.

‘A Tablet-Based Lexicon Application for Robot-Aided Educational Interaction of Children with Dyslexia’ was one of the three designs nominated for the best design.

Alireza Taheri (a faculty member of the Mechanical Engineering and the director of the social and cognitive robotics laboratory), Ali Qorbandaipour (an engineer holding an MS degree), and Omid Amiri (a BS student) took part in the conference on behalf of the members of the research group.

They presented their articles and designs and grabbed first place in the social robotics competition for ‘T-Dyslexia: Taban 2 Social Robot Package Assisting Dyslexia’.

The ICSR

The International Conference on Social Robotics aims to bring together leading academic scientists, researchers, and research scholars to exchange and share their experiences and research results on all aspects of the Social Robotics Conference.

It also provides a premier interdisciplinary platform for researchers, practitioners, and educators to present and discuss the most recent innovations, trends, and concerns as well as practical challenges encountered and solutions adopted in the fields of Social Robotics Conference.

The 15th ICSR 2023 brought together researchers and practitioners working on the interaction between humans and intelligent robots and on the integration of social robots into society.  

The theme of this year’s conference is “Human-Robot Collaboration: Sea, Air, Land, Space, and Cyberspace”, highlighting all physical and cyber-physical domains where humans and robots collaborate.

Social and Cognitive Robotics at Sharif University

The line of research focuses on designing/using Social and Cognitive Robotics, Virtual Reality Systems, and Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) platforms for the education and rehabilitation of children with special needs e.g. children with autism, children with hearing problems, and children with cerebral palsy.

The research includes robots’ design and fabrication, serious games’ design, artificial intelligence and control, conducting educational/clinical interventions for children, developing cognitive architectures for social robots, mathematical modeling of participants’ behaviors during HRI, and empowering robots to analyze users’ behaviors automatically and then react adaptively.

Recent academic rankings

In October, The Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings 2024 listed 36 Iranian universities among the world’s top 1,000 institutions, compared with 29 universities in 2023.

The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2024 include 1,904 universities across 108 countries and regions.

The ranking is based on 18 carefully calibrated performance indicators that measure an institution’s performance across five areas: teaching, research environment, research quality, industry, and international outlook.

Sharif University of Technology ranks first among Iranian universities with a rank in the range of 301-350.

According to an early release from the 2023 edition of the World Intellectual Property Organization’s (WIPO) Global Innovation Index (GII), Tehran ranks 34th among the top 100 Science and Technology (S&T) clusters in the world.

In September, Iranian higher education institutions once again demonstrated their global prominence, with 18 universities making their mark in the prestigious "Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities," also known as the "Taiwan Ranking," released annually by the National Taiwan University.

The University of Tehran has emerged as the torchbearer of Iranian academia, securing an impressive global ranking of 286 in the 2023 Taiwan Ranking. This distinction cements the University of Tehran's reputation as a world-class institution committed to research excellence.

In August, the second edition of the Webometrics ranking 2023 of the World Universities ranked 440 Iranian institutions among 30,000 top universities worldwide.

Tehran University, ranked 305 in the world, is the top among Iranian institutions on the list followed by Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences.

The first edition of the Webometrics Ranking of World Universities 2023, in June, ranked 457 Iranian institutions among around 32,000 top universities across the world.

Universities (ARWU), also known as Shanghai Ranking, placed ten universities from Iran among the top 1000 universities in the world in the Shanghai Ranking, 2023, according to the head of the Islamic World Science Citation Center (ISC).              

The University of Tehran is among the top 500 universities in the world with a rank of 401-500, the best among Iranian universities, the ISC head Ahmad Fazelzadeh said, IRIB reported.

Iran ready for scientific co-op

Vice President for Science, Technology, and Knowledge-based Economy, Rouhollah Dehqani-Firouzabadi, condemning unilateral coercive measures against Iran's knowledge-based and scientific companies, announced Iran's readiness for scientific and technological cooperation with other countries to make a better world.

Referring to the significant role of knowledge and innovation and their tremendous impact on the progress of nations, Firouzabadi said Iran's civilization has honored knowledge throughout history.

“Our ancient teachings and the contributions we have made to the advancement of science and technology is a proof of that saying.”

He made the remarks at the 15th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) Social Forum held from November 2 – 3, in Geneva, IRIB reported.

Iran's developments in the field of science and technology, improving people's welfare by using science and technology capacities, Iran's strategies in dealing with the coronavirus, Iran's technological solutions to improve the health of society, technological employment and solving social problems with soft technologies were among the most important topics of Firouzabadi's speech.

“Since the establishment of the United Nations, Iran has remained committed to multilateral cooperation, including global cooperation through the United Nations.

“We are keen to engage with the international community and share our research with them while benefiting from the best practices, developments, and achievements of other countries in the fields of science, technology, and innovation,” IRIB quotes Firouzabadi as saying.

MT/MG