According to the Mehr news agency, citing the Vice Preside for Science, Technology and Knowledge-Based Economy, the iroduction of the “Leap” strategic program (flowing, guiding and accelerating the quality scieific outputs of faculty members) was held in two separate meetings with the presence of the head of the National Science Foundation of Iran, today, the eighth of Bahman, at the place of the Scieific Vice. In the first meeting, university presides and research assistas of 11 top universities of the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology were prese; In another meeting, the vice presides of research and technology of 9 top universities of medical sciences of the Ministry of Health explained this program.
Mohammadreza Hormozinjad, Preside of the National Science Foundation of Iran, during his speech at this meeting, emphasized the strategic importance of the Leap plan and stated: This program will be the beginning of an effective moveme in the top universities of our coury.
He further explained the financial support of this developme and added: This year, by the order of the Preside’s scieific deputy, he has allocated an amou of credit to start this project. This credit is specially iended to support institutions that have the greatest impact on the scieific and research outputs of the coury.
By preseing new data, he evaluated the state of the coury’s scieific productions and said: While the coury’s scieific output trend had a jump in developme in the first twey years after the revolution, and the special support of the Ministry of Science and the Ministry of Health accelerated the production, in the last four and five years, we faced a decrease in the number of outputs, which is a worrying situation.
Hormozinejad poied out Iran’s position in the world: According to the statistics of 2024, Iran’s scieific position is 17th among the couries of the world, however, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia are rapidly approaching Iran, and it is likely that if this downward trend coinues in the statistics of 2025, which will be published soon, the coury will experience a drop in rank. Also, it was emphasized that currely Iran’s scieific position in the Islamic world is second after Türkiye (first) and before Saudi Arabia (third).
The head of the Iran Science Foundation emphasized: by closely monitoring the number, quality and growth rate of publications in the fields where Iran has the largest share, we are experiencing a declining situation, and the supporting institutions must pay serious atteion to this issue and preve this decline from coinuing.
According to Hormozinejad, this program was designed by the direct order of the Scieific Vice-Chancellor and under the guidance of the National Science Foundation of Iran, in line with the five main goals of maiaining the coury’s iernational scieific authority, stopping the downward trend of scieific publications, improving the quality of faculty members’ outputs, increasing the motivation of faculty members, postdoctoral researchers and graduate studes, and raising the scieific rank of the coury’s top universities on the iernational level.
This official, the implemeation framework of this program in three main steps; He explained the selection of supported universities, the determination of evaluation indicators and the design of the implemeation and monitoring method.
Regarding the first step, he explained: For benchmarking, ISC-2024, QS 2026, Times 2026, Shanghai 2025 and Nature-Index rating systems were reviewed. Looking at the ranking data of the Islamic world in the three-year period of 2022-2024, it was found that the first 20 universities publish about 80% of the coury’s articles. For this purpose, in consultation with the research assistas of the ministers, these 20 universities were selected as supported universities.
Hormzhinejad coinued: In the second step, the indicators are designed with the aim of periodic evaluation and compliance with the comprehensive scieific map of the coury. Universities should select and impleme appropriate target indicators in their proposed proposal form. Among the target indicators, the following can be meioned: total articles published in the evaluation year, top 1% and 10% articles, number and per capita of first and second quartile articles, articles published in the Nature Index group, per capita articles indexed in WoS to full-time researchers, and the ratio of the number of articles shared in WoS with foreign researchers. Universities are expected to be able to raise up to 70% of the desired increase with differe mechanisms and from their tax credits.
In the end, he poied out that in the third step, the implemeation and monitoring method of the program is designed; He poied out: In this regard, a dashboard for monitoring the research performance of universities is being designed, which is expected to be available to the presides and research assistas of the universities before Eid, and will provide the possibility to monitor the performance of the universities even on a daily basis.
He added: Selected universities will have three weeks to submit their executive plan in writing, and after approval, 40% of the program credit will be allocated to them. The supervision of the implemeation of the program will also be the responsibility of a committee called “Leading and Monitoring Committee” in the National Science Foundation of Iran.
In the final part of this program, the presides and vice presides of the universities asked questions and preseed their suggestions. Among the axes raised in this section, emphasis was placed on paying more atteion to basic sciences, the necessity of a detailed analysis of the reasons for the reduction of scieific productions, deeper problem-finding, and the pursuit of solving these problems through announcing and planning them at the upstream levels.
