TEHRAN – Iranian women have proven they can contribute greatly to the advancement of science, as 345 female researchers are on the Highly Cited Researchers list of the world.

The lists of top and influential researchers are published every year by various citation databases. The global index categorizes researchers based on different criteria, including the number and citations to their articles.

The larger number of researchers from each country indicates the scientific authority of the country in the international arena.

It is noteworthy that the number of Iranian researchers in the top one percent of highly cited scientists has increased from 685 in the past Iranian calendar year 1400 (March 2021-March 2022) to 840 in the current year.

And the number of researchers of the top two percent of highly cited scientists has increased from 1,870 last year to 1,941 this year.

Iranian women have also played their role in the scientific authority of Iran, and in the list of 2,795 Iranian highly cited researchers, which includes researchers in the top 0.1 percent, top 1 percent, and top 2 percent, there are 345 Iranian women scientists.

Domestic support

The national budget bill for the next Iranian calendar year 1402, which starts on March 21, has increased the budget for women’s affairs by over 50 percent compared to the current year’s budget.

Some 580 billion rials (about $1.5 million) has been proposed by the budget bill for the next year compared with 320 billion rials (about $800,000) for the current year, ISNA reported.

President Ebrahim Raisi submitted the administration’s draft of the national budget bill for the next Iranian calendar year 1402, which starts on March 21, to the Majlis on January 11.

The proposed budget amounted to about 52.616 quadrillion rials (about $131 billion), with a 40 percent rise from the current year’s budget.

The president mentioned stable economic growth, people’s livelihood, observing justice, and efficiency of the government system as the main approaches of the budget bill and stated: “In this bill, the establishment of a progress and justice fund in all provinces is foreseen so that the development credits of the provinces are paid systematically.”

The National Headquarters for Women and Family Affairs has approved six plans to support families and empower women and improve their status in society.

The formation of a loan guarantee fund for women heads of households was one of the plans of the National Headquarters for Women and Family Affairs.

Due to the fact that many female breadwinners could not use business loans due to the lack of a guarantor, the fund was established to help them.

According to official statistics, there are 3.5 million female heads of households, but according to unofficial statistics, the figure reaches more than 6 million.

A plan is entitled ‘Upgrading the structure of the vice president and advisors related to the vice presidency for women and families.’

Highly cited researchers

According to the 2022 list of Highly Cited Researchers revealed by Clarivate, 12 Iranian researchers are among the most cited researchers.

The exceptional individuals designated Highly Cited Researchers 2022 have published multiple highly cited papers, ranking in the top 1% by citations for field and year over the last decade. Of all the world’s researchers, they are one in 1,000.

The analysts use both quantitative and qualitative analysis to identify influential individuals from around the globe and across many research fields. This year, 6,938 scientists and social scientists from nearly 70 countries were recognized.

In the previous edition of the highly cited researchers list, 15 researchers were from Iranian institutions, but in the 2022 edition, 12 Iranian researchers have been included.

In November 2022, the Essential Science Indicators (ESI) database listed 841 Iranian researchers among the top one percent of most cited researchers in the world.

The highest number of researchers were included in the engineering category amounting to 229 scientists, followed by clinical medicine with 140, and the multidisciplinary category with 150 people.

In October 2022, Stanford University listed 1,870 Iranian researchers among the top 2 percent of the most-cited scientists in the world, which has grown significantly compared to past years.

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, the deputy science minister, Peyman Salehi, has said.

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, ranking 15th worldwide.

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