TEHRAN – Female Iranian and Chinese academicians held talks at Tehran’s Al-Zahra University on Wednesday, discussing ways to expand international and scientific cooperation among women.

Zahra Nazem-Bokaee, the president of Al-Zahra University, highlighted the potential of the two nations in fostering joint scientific collaborations and the scientific research capacities of women in the two countries.

For her part, LI Ying, the vice president of China Women’s University, expressed optimism that genius Iranian and Chinese women would play a stronger role in promoting peace and expanding societies.

During the meeting, Khadijeh Joda, an advisor to the vice president for science and technology, proposed enhancing cooperation through the following three key initiatives.

1. Developing technology and innovation centers specifically for women in Iran and China in the fields of clean technologies, digital energy, and digital health.

2. Launching a joint program to share knowledge and implement scientific research cooperation by women technologists from the two countries. It includes launching joint research projects, holding visits, and specialized training courses.

3. Establishing a joint development and empowerment fund among women technologists of the two countries to support joint projects, including start-ups and innovative projects.

Iranian women making headway in technology

Having made great strides in manufacturing high-tech products and growing the knowledge-based economy, Iranian women are conveying to the world the message that they have the potential to shine in the field of technology, the same as in other fields.

They have managed to shine brilliantly in different global events, featuring Iranian women’s abilities to the world.

The percentage of female CEOs and chairpersons of the board of directors of knowledge-based companies has increased noticeably over the past three years. 

The number of female managers has almost doubled, rising from 1,092 in the Iranian calendar year 1400 (2021-2022) to 2,250 by the end of the first nine months of the current Iranian year that started on March 20, 2024.

However, despite the rise in the presence of leading women in the technology and innovation sector in the country in recent decades, they have remained a significant minority, compared to men, in the research and scientific sectors, the private sector, as well as technological businesses.

According to Ahmad Fazelzadeh, the head of the Islamic World Science Citation (ISC) Institute, female scholars constitute 665 out of 4,818 most-cited researchers of the country, more than 13 percent of the total.

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.

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.

MT/MG