According to Mehr reporter, publication of scientific articles is one of the main drivers of economic, social and cultural development in any country. But this production of science is practically not possible without stable and legal access to reliable global scientific sources. The experience of several decades of higher education in Iran also shows that there has been a direct correlation between the access of universities to international scientific bases and the growth of the country’s scientific production.
Since the end of the 1360s, simultaneously with the movement of Iranian universities from the educational model (first generation) to research universities (second generation) and then entrepreneurial universities in the 1400s, access to scientific resources has always been one of the key infrastructures of this transition.
In this regard, the “Scientific Resources Supply Council” started its official activity in 1379 with the notification of the Research Deputy of the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology.
This council, which has been operating since 2013 under the title of “Scientific Resources Supply Council of the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology”, has been responsible for providing scientific resources to universities with an emphasis on respecting intellectual property, author’s and publisher’s rights (copyright). This council is chaired by the head of Iran Science and Information Technology Research Institute (IranDAC).
However, frequent currency jumps and severe budget restrictions caused the legal access of the country’s universities to many international scientific bases to be severely reduced from 2021, and at times even stopped completely. This situation continued until 2023; When, with the continuous follow-up of the head of the Scientific Resources Supply Council in the Program and Budget Organization and the Central Bank, the resource supply path was reactivated and universities’ access to international scientific bases was resumed.
According to the announcement of the Scientific Resources Supply Council, the most important measures taken in this period include the settlement of the major part of the outstanding debts of the universities, which were mainly accumulated following the currency fluctuations of 2013, and the beginning of the new period of cooperation with international publishers for the years 2024 to 2026; Cooperation that is based on preserving the rights of the publisher and the author.
In this framework, the subscription of widely used scientific and scientometric databases such as ScienceDirect and Scopus has been re-established, and access to artificial intelligence-based databases such as Scopus AI, Zendy AI (ZAIA) and Scinito AI has also been provided to universities. It is also possible to provide “Article Processing Fee” (APC) for the publication of articles by researchers, professors and graduate students with an international publisher.
According to the officials of this council, even in the critical conditions of the country, including during the 12-day war and subsequent events, efforts have been made to maintain the access of universities to scientific resources by consulting and putting pressure on foreign publishers.
In addition to providing access, the Council for Providing Scientific Resources has held a series of workshops over the past year to improve the skills of using these databases; Including training workshops on working with ScienceDirect database, Scopus citation analysis database, artificial intelligence tools related to these databases, as well as specialized workshops on using Zendy, ZAIA and Scinito AI. Some of these workshops are dedicated to topics such as navigating the global research landscape and accessing the full text of articles.
The educational videos of all these workshops are available to the interested public through the Irandoc website and on the page of the Scientific Resources Supply Council at irandoc.ac.ir/CSRA.
According to Mehr, providing universities with access to international scientific bases is one of the actions of Iran’s Research Institute of Science and Information Technology, which was introduced on the fifth day of Fajr. On each day of Fajr decade, one of the activities and achievements of this research institute is introduced.
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