Referring to the support of the Supreme Leader, Shahin Akhundzadeh said at the ceremony of the 26th Aburihan Biruni Research Festival, which was held this morning on Tuesday, January 2, at the Faculty of Medicine of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences. However, unfortunately, almost all governmes have failed to support science and technology.
He coinued: “If we are in this position today, this did not happen by planning.” We have a strong human resource poteial; This manpower has compensated for the weaknesses and manageme problems of the coury.
Referring to the process of compiling five-year developme plans, the vice preside of research and technology of the Ministry of Health said: We constaly write multi-year plans, but they are not implemeed. Usually, 25% of the developme programs are implemeed, and this amou of implemeation does not need to be planned. Always our plans delusional we write We also know that it is not possible to achieve these goals, we know that conditions must be provided to create these facilities, but we do not provide them.
Referring to the goals set in the 7th plan regarding research, he said: In this plan, it is stated that the scieific rank of the coury should be 14th; But there is a problem with this resolution. It is not specified on which base the rank should be obtained. On the other hand, before the approval of this program, it was stated that the number of rank 12 should be included, at the insistence of Dr. Zulfi Gol, the Minister of Science at the time, this number was changed to 14 because it was not possible to reach the goal of rank 12.
Referring to the drop in the coury’s scieific ranking, Akhundzadeh said: “In 2019, we were ranked 15th and at times we were ranked 14th, but a group of people in the university, in the Ministry of Science, in the Ministry of Health and the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution, criticized that universities only write articles.”
He coinued: These criticisms are stated while most of the global ranking systems are article-based and rank based on the article. When it is assigned that 20 universities should get a rank less than 500 in a ranking system, reaching this rank requires an article.
The vice preside of research and technology of the Ministry of Health added: It was said that the Nobel laureate has 50 articles, our researchers have 500 to 2 thousand articles they have; The result was that our ranks dropped. Now with these conditions, even with double the effort, we cannot reach the 14th rank.
Referring to the position of the coury in the field of technology, he said: The situation is not better in technology either. We haven’t just dropped in the article. If we examine the couries of China and India, we see that first the research rank increased and three, four, five years later technology also grew. The two are not separate. We have fallen in articles, we have also fallen in innovation; Our ranking in the global innovation index has increased from 53 to 70, and our scieific ranking has also increased from 15 to 17. Therefore, these two indicators move together. We can’t expect not to have academic research but expect technology. If there is no research, technology is just copied and not real technology.
Akhundzadeh, referring to the goal of the 7th developme program regarding the ratio of articles to each faculty member, said: This index should reach one and a half, in the Ministry of Science, this amou is below one. While in many universities of medical sciences, this ratio is between 3 and 4 articles. While in Harvard University, the ratio of articles to each faculty member is 10 articles and we wish to reach one and a half. We didn’t have much scholarly production at all, yet we were critical of writing papers.
Referring to the importance of universities’ ranking in the iernational arena, he said: Research is not the main task of the faculty, but its existence is necessary. Because research creates dynamics. The role of research is to create self-confidence. We are now in a hybrid war with the world. The goal is to make the Iranian youth disappoied. Nothing in our universities can create self-confidence as much as research achievemes. We need to strengthen this; This is in favor of the Islamic Republic.
Criticizing the lack of support for research in the coury, the deputy minister of health said: in the ranking Cymgo; In 2024 we were ranked 17th, compared to 16th the week before the announceme. Our difference in terms of number of articles with the 16th ranked coury was very small, and with an effort, we could have taken the 16th rank, but we missed one rank.
Regarding the solutions to compensate for this drop in rank, he said: sometimes some articles of the periodicals are not coued as the coury’s article due to the error of the robot that checks the articles. Suppose a journal published 10 articles in one issue, but only 8 articles were included Scopus has been If one person becomes responsible for checking these articles and for “Missing Articles” with adminScopus call, those two articles will be added. This year, we were able to add 167 articles to the statistics of the coury’s articles. This action doesn’t even cost much, only one employee has to sit and write an email, so this distance is compensated.
Türkiye, Saudi Arabia and Russia overtook us
The Deputy Minister of Health stated that Türkiye and Saudi Arabia are currely in 2025 Scopus They are ahead of us, he said: Russia is also ahead of us even though the whole world has sanctioned it and its rank has dropped. We hope that in these two or three mohs uil April, all our articles will arrive Scopus and we can get at least the 17th or even the 16th rank.
This year, the scieific embargo closed the sword
Stating that this year’s scieific embargo has closed the sword for us, he said: “Before, the publishers did not directly say that we do not publish articles from Iranian researchers, they played with words and rejected the articles, but now they clearly write that we do not publish because of the embargo.”
The research budget was reduced in 1405
The Vice Preside of Research and Technology of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences considered theses and research projects to be the main source of article production and said: Our graduate theses have decreased and their attractiveness for master’s and doctoral studes has decreased. This issue in reducing the scieific rank and the number of articles between iernational It has a direct effect.
He stated that the attractiveness of postgraduate education has decreased; He said: In addition to the issue of empty seats in postgraduate education, approved research projects have also decreased in the coury. Differe governmes had growth in terms of the number of research projects, but in the 13th governme, this amou decreased. When we sow less, we reap less. We will face a research drought in the next few years.
Dr. Akhundzadeh referring to the coury’s article production statistics in the database Scopusstated: While the general trend of articles in the coury has grown, in a certain period, we have seen stagnation and decline, which is evide in all universities under the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Science, and Azad University.
Akhundzadeh with a statistical comparison of the number of indexed magazines in the coury Scopus With regional competitors, he emphasized the necessity of using the capacity of domestic publications.
He clarified: We have been more successful in indexing journals than the Ministry of Science. The Ministry of Science has about 2000 journals, while our number of indexed journals is below 500. Türkiye with 3,334 magazines and UAE with 142 magazines show our distance in this field.
He added: The ieresting thing is that Türkiye has published more articles from its researchers in these journals with fewer journals. This shows that they use the poteial of their magazines as an iernational media. We should make good use of this poteial in the curre situation where we are facing sanctions.
This official is responsible for indexing the 100th journal of the University of Medical Sciences in a scieific database iernational He meioned it as a success and said: “If only the editors of the universities, one page in each chapter”Editorial(Editor’s stateme) write in English, we can have a significa impact on the coury’s ranking.
Akhundzadeh also poied out the importance of university rankings in attracting iernational studes and said: Foreign studes choose universities based on rankings to coinue their education. As we check universities to study in Europe and America. For example, Iraq has recely adopted a ranking for our universities that sets the criteria for stude admission.
This researcher of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, criticizing next year’s budgeting policies in the field of research, announced: We expected the authorities to be aware of research and technology after the rece 12-day war, and special atteion E to this section. But unfortunately, the research budget for 1405 not only did not increase and even decreased in some cases, while other couries such as Russia increased the technology and research budget during the war.
He poied out that the budget allocated to stude theses is insignifica; Unfortunately, this amou does not even reach a thousand dollars. Although these supports should not be purely financial and non-material supports should not be neglected.
happiness Giving is all we can do
The vice preside of research and technology of the Ministry of Health emphasized that we cannot provide financial support to researchers. happiness Giving to the researcher is all we can do. as happiness An orthopedic surgeon or a professor in the classroom directly affects the quality of his work. In fact, the first place where unhappiness affects is the field of research. Therefore, we have a duty to reduce the bureaucracy and not add problems for researchers.
Akhundzadeh suggested: In order not to stop the engine of research, atteion should also be paid to research in the recruitme of teaching faculty members so that these people become the engine of science production.
Criticizing the administrative and structural obstacles, he emphasized the need to support the real capacity of researchers: He considered the achievemes of applied research in the coury’s pharmaceutical industry as an example of the undeniable influence of science on people’s lives. Therefore, we should not create obstacles in the path of science and research with administrative bureaucracy.
Referring to the high capacity of professors and researchers, he considered non-scieific limitations as an obstacle to progress and said: “Unfortunately, in some cases, we preve the research activities of professors by creating obstacles and limitations.” This is despite the fact that a medical science university professor may have the ability to guide 50 or even 100 theses. But instead of putting a freeway in fro of this professor, we create obstacles in his path.
Akhundzadeh stated that a lot of efforts have been made for the research field of the coury, but these measures are not properly reported, and said: Comprehensive documeation must be on the agenda to fix this shortcoming. Based on this, we are preparing a 13-part documeary to show the promine researchers of the coury whose work has had a great impact on improving the health and treatme of the coury.
