TEHRAN – Female scholars constitute 665 out of 4,818 most-cited researchers of the country, more than 13 percent of the total, Ahmad Fazelzadeh, the head of the Islamic World Science Citation (ISC) Institute, has said.

In the past Iranian calendar year (March 2023 – March 2024), women accounted for 12.75 percent of most-cited researchers.

With 29.57 percent share, the Ministry of Health has the highest number of the most-cited female researchers, IRNA quoted Fazelzadeh as saying. 

According to the recent report of ISC, in the list of one percent of researchers in the world which is based on the Essential Science Indicators (ESI) database, a total of 177 Iranian female researchers have been recognized in the areas of Agricultural Sciences, Clinical Medicine, Biology, Biochemistry, Chemistry, Pharmacology and Toxicology, Neuroscience and Psychology, Engineering, Material Science, Psychiatry/Psychology, Computer Science, Physics, Molecular Biology and Genetics, Social Sciences, Generalities, Physics, Plant and Animal Sciences, Immunology, and some have obtained the necessary points even in several fields, he added.

The official went on to say that according to the Stanford University List which was conducted by a number of researchers from Stanford University and the Elsevier Institute via analyzing the data of the Scopus database, 73 highly cited Iranian female researchers are among the top two percent in the world (service performance) in eight subject areas including Clinical Medicine, Chemistry, Biomedicine, Strategic

Technologies (Artificial Intelligence, Nanotechnology, etc.), Biology, Physics, Astrology, Information Technology and Communications, and Engineering. 

Moreover, 375 female Iranian highly-cited researchers are among the top two percent of the world (one-year performance) in 13 subject areas of Clinical Medicine, Biomedicine, Chemistry, Engineering, Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Strategic Technologies (Artificial Intelligence, Nanotechnology, etc.), Information Technology and Communication, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Physics and Astronomy, Public Health and Health Services, Biology, Statistics and Mathematics, Communication and Textual Research have obtained the necessary points.

Using the data indexed in the ISC database, ISC identifies highly cited Iranian researchers in Human Sciences, Social Sciences, Art, and Architecture.

In the latest announced list, highly cited researchers have been introduced in the period of 10 years (since 2013). The criteria for selecting researchers in this list is the number of citations made to their scientific productions.

Some 40 female researchers in 14 subject areas including Human Sciences, Social Sciences, Art and Architecture, Psychology, Sociology and Political Sciences, Language and Linguistics, Business, Management and Accounting, Theology and Islamic Studies,  Educational Sciences, Philosophy,  Geographical Sciences, Historical Sciences, Knowledge and Information Science, and other areas gained required scores. 

Women hold over 24% share of inventions in Iran

According to Zahra Behrouz-Azar, the Vice President for Women and Family Affairs, women account for more than 24 percent of inventions in the country, compared to the global average of 17 percent.

“Unfortunately, only 12 percent of entrepreneurship and start-ups are founded by women. We hope that women’s presence in entrepreneurship reaches 30 percent by the end of the current administration,” Behrouz-Azar noted.

The official went on to say that in Iran, entrepreneurship officially commenced in 2000. Following that it was defined as a field of study in universities, and the first entrepreneurial major as an interdisciplinary one launched at University of Tehran.

Today, the concept of entrepreneurship is interwoven with various fields such as economy, psychology, culture, sociology, and even religion. 

With the conceptual development of entrepreneurial thought, women’s entrepreneurship begins to grow because there is a difference between men and women in terms of performance, motivation, and access to resources.

One of the most important differences between entrepreneurship among women and men is the issue of motivation.

Men’s motivation in entrepreneurship is more concerned with earning a living and increasing wealth, but women all over the world tend to use it to strengthen the family foundation.

The most important goal in women’s entrepreneurship in the current administration is to promote motivation.

Men entrepreneurs can more easily provide resources and capital for their businesses, but this happens less for women. 

Therefore, educated women face funding problems to start off their business.

The government is well aware of the issue and is looking for solutions to boost access to finance for women entrepreneurs, Behrouz-azar highlighted.

MT/MG