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 governments have failed to support science and technology.
He continued: “If we are in this position today, this did not happen by planning.” We have a strong human resource potential; This manpower has compensated for the weaknesses and management problems of the country.
Referring to the process of compiling five-year development plans, the vice president of research and technology of the Ministry of Health said: We constantly write multi-year plans, but they are not implemented. Usually, 25% of the development programs are implemented, and this amount of implementation 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 scientific rank of the country 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 country’s scientific 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 continued: 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 president 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 country 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 countries 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 scientific 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 development 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 amount 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 international 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 disappointed. Nothing in our universities can create self-confidence as much as research achievements. We need to strengthen this; This is in favor of the Islamic Republic.
Criticizing the lack of support for research in the country, the deputy minister of health said: in the ranking Cymgo; In 2024 we were ranked 17th, compared to 16th the week before the announcement. Our difference in terms of number of articles with the 16th ranked country 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 counted as the country’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 admin Scopus call, those two articles will be added. This year, we were able to add 167 articles to the statistics of the country’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 currently 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 months until April, all our articles will arrive Scopus and we can get at least the 17th or even the 16th rank.
This year, the scientific embargo closed the sword
Stating that this year’s scientific 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 President 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 students has decreased. This issue in reducing the scientific rank and the number of articles between international 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 country. Different governments had growth in terms of the number of research projects, but in the 13th government, this amount decreased. When we sow less, we reap less. We will face a research drought in the next few years.
Dr. Akhundzadeh referring to the country’s article production statistics in the database Scopusstated: While the general trend of articles in the country has grown, in a certain period, we have seen stagnation and decline, which is evident 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 country 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 interesting thing is that Türkiye has published more articles from its researchers in these journals with fewer journals. This shows that they use the potential of their magazines as an international media. We should make good use of this potential in the current situation where we are facing sanctions.
This official is responsible for indexing the 100th journal of the University of Medical Sciences in a scientific database international He mentioned it as a success and said: “If only the editors of the universities, one page in each chapter”Editorial(Editor’s statement) write in English, we can have a significant impact on the country’s ranking.
Akhundzadeh also pointed out the importance of university rankings in attracting international students and said: Foreign students choose universities based on rankings to continue their education. As we check universities to study in Europe and America. For example, Iraq has recently adopted a ranking for our universities that sets the criteria for student 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 recent 12-day war, and special attention E to this section. But unfortunately, the research budget for 1405 not only did not increase and even decreased in some cases, while other countries such as Russia increased the technology and research budget during the war.
He pointed out that the budget allocated to student theses is insignificant; Unfortunately, this amount 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 president 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, attention should also be paid to research in the recruitment 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 achievements of applied research in the country’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-scientific limitations as an obstacle to progress and said: “Unfortunately, in some cases, we prevent 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 front 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 country, but these measures are not properly reported, and said: Comprehensive documentation must be on the agenda to fix this shortcoming. Based on this, we are preparing a 13-part documentary to show the prominent researchers of the country whose work has had a great impact on improving the health and treatment of the country.
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