TEHRAN – Every year February 11 is celebrated globally as the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, recognizing the role of women and girls in science as agents of change, including in view of accelerating progress towards the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals.

This year’s theme is “Women and Girls in Science Leadership, a New Era for Sustainability” and the subtheme is “Think Science ... Think Peace”.

In this regard, Iranian female researchers have managed to play a critical role by strengthening their participation in areas related to science and technology, acquiring a special place in the field of scientific authority at the national and international levels.

Women outnumber men in higher education

Statistics indicate women’s participation in higher education has overtaken men’s, holding a greater share of educational fields.

The number of female students and female faculty members has increased significantly experiencing an upward trend in the last 45 years.

The number of female students has increased from 19,027 in the 1970 -71 academic year to 1,510,426 in 2020-21 which signifies female students’ number increased 56 times. However, the average growth of the total student number during the same period has been 50 times.

Women’s participation in higher education can be considered as a criterion for measuring educational justice and a factor for the progress of society, which can lead to balanced development.

In 2001s, the share of women in Iran's higher education reached more than 50 percent. Consequently, there were more female than male students.

The number of female faculty members in Iran's higher education has been on the rise, too.  The number of female faculty members has increased 30 times during the last four decades, while during the same period, the number of faculty members increased only 11 times.

Iranian female scholars

According to the recent report of Islamic World Science and Technology Monitoring and Citation (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 135 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, Interdisciplinary, Social Science, generalities and some have obtained the necessary points even in several fields.

Moreover, 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, 60 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.), Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Physics and Astronomy, Information and Communication Technology, and Engineering.

A total of 316 female Iranian highly-cited researchers are among the top two percent of the world (one-year performance) in 14 subject areas of Clinical Medicine, Biomedicine, Chemistry, Engineering, Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Strategic Technologies (Artificial Intelligence, Nanotechnology, etc.), Information and Communication Technology, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Physics and Astronomy, Environment, Design and Construction, Public Health and Health Services, Biology, Social Sciences, Communication and Textual Research have obtained the necessary points.

MT/MG