science growth in iran over the past 35 years

background : this study was carried out to evaluate activities in different branches of science in iran compared to other countries over the past 35 years. methods : e ssential science indicators (esi ) and web of science from (thomson reuters isi) and scimago journal & country rank (sjr) were searched for scientometrics data . esi indicated place of iran among other countries in all 22 scientific categories bas ed on the publication and citation rates . sjr parameters, such as publication rate , citable publications, citation rate , citation s per publication and the h-index were used to record the rank of iran among the world’s countries. results : a progressive quantitative and qualitative growth of iranian publications was evident. the field of c hemistry in iran was the most prolific in terms of the number of p ublications (16982) wh ereas economics and business was the least prolific ( 156 ) . a growth in the quality of works of iranian authors was evident by gaining higher h-index in the recent years. conclusions : if this scientific growth of iran continues, it would not be surprising to see iran as one of the most powerful countries in the field of science in the world. keywords : iran, science growth, ranking in the world