TEHRAN – Thanks to targeted planning and coordinated efforts, about 125 Iranian journals have been indexed by the reputable databases of Scopus and Web of Science over the past four years, an official with the Ministry of Science has said.

In the last year (March 2024 – March 2025) alone, some 50 Iranian journals were indexed, which is a scientific record for the country. The growth rate of scientific publications, which is not easy to repeat, indicates that a specific program has been pursued to improve the status of the country’s scientific journals, ISNA quoted Samad Nejad-Ebrahimi as saying.

These journals are, in fact, a scientific and international showcase of Iran in science and technology fields, and improving them will directly contribute to achieving scientific authority, the official added.

Referring to the role of journals in the country’s knowledge-based ecosystem, Nejad-Ebrahimi said a journal with an international index has significant added value, which doubles the importance of scientific and managerial investment in the field.

Iran among top five countries in DOAJ

According to the latest Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) data, Iran, with a total of 1,003 indexed journals, is one of the top five countries among 138 countries publishing the most open-access journals.

DOAJ is a unique and extensive index of diverse open-access journals from around the world, driven by a growing community. It is committed to ensuring quality content is openly available online for everyone.

DOAJ’s mission is to increase the visibility, accessibility, reputation, usage, and impact of quality, peer-reviewed, open-access scholarly research journals globally, regardless of discipline, geography, or language. It is committed to being 100 percent independent and maintaining all of its primary services and metadata as open to everyone.

The country’s progress over the past decade has been noticeable, rising from 95 indexed journals in 2015 to 506 in 2022. The trend continued to grow, reaching 931 in 2024 and 1003 in 2025, msrt.ir reported.

Out of 1,003 indexed journals, 584 and 480 journals are in Persian and English, respectively. Six journals are in Arabic, two in French, and two others are in the Russian language. There is a journal in the Avestan language, and one in the Kurdish language. Overall, Iran, with 591 Persian journals, ranked ninth among 80 other languages.

According to the DOAJ data, Indonesia, with 2511 indexed journals, is placed first, followed by the United Kingdom (2202), Brazil (1533), and the United States (1248).

MT/MG