Perspectives of Science in Iran

It cannot be ignored that Iran had an impressive history in science over the very ancient years; through significant number of unique inventions, ideas, and discoveries brought by Iranian scientists such as Farabi, Toosi, Razes, Avicenna, Hesabi, and many others. During centuries due to political, cultural circumstances and war, Iran's activities in all aspects of science and technology (S & T), as well as art have been changed. Expansion of internet and information technology in the last 50 years has eased estimation of impact of each scientist or institute or even countries in the world. When one examines scientometric databases such as Thompson Reuters (ISI). Scopus, or Google Scholar, the growth in Iranian S&T especially during the last 20 years is very evident. The S&T growth is seen in several fields such as chemistry, clinical medicine, pharmacology/toxicology/pharmaceutical sciences, physics, computer sciences, and engineering. The number of registered inventions and patents have also risen during the last 5 years. Regarding S&T, current data indicate that Iran is ranked after Turkey among its neighbors and the eighth in the and Singapore. When one thinks about reasons of S&T growth in Iran, some major elements seem to be involved; for instance, attention of decision and policy makers to S&T in terms of research budget, training of experts, and updating instruments. Currently, Iranian government allocates around 0.5% of its GDP to S&T, which still ranks it behind industrialized countries which spend around 1.4% of their GDP on average. Despite such growth in S&T, brain drain has been increased in the last few years that need special attention. Regarding high potential of Iranian educated people, most of Iranians have got the best scientific jobs in the world especially in USA and other Western countries. Therefore, decision makers should be aware of establishing encouragement protocols to prevent brain drain. Some countries in the world, even the neighbor countries, have been lucky in returning their eminent scientists even those who had spent most of their lives abroad. The reality of the matter is that the brain drain is not an issue of only the developing countries. Lots of developed countries are dealing with a huge brain exodus especially to US, Canada, and Australia. Lessons should be learned from the countries that were having problems with brain drain and now not only they have overcome the issue, but also eventually have become " head hunters ". A good …