Dezfouli added that Mustafa (pbuh) Prize is designed to enhance capabilities of Iran and Islamic world scientists, and to create competition on a global scale.
According to the Public Relations Department of Mustafa (pbuh) Prize, the Secretary of Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution described the reasons behind approval of Mustafa (pbuh) Prize initiative by the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution in 2012, adding, “there were different reasons for the Prize's approval. Iran's scientific progress in various fields of science and technology, especially in recent decades has been remarkable. Some reliable sources reported the scientific advancement and progress of Iran to be 13 times the global average.”
He pointed out that at some point, especially in the early 90s, our country was ranked along with Iraq and our share of producing knowledge was only about 0.3 percent. These figures were not acceptable in terms of quality and quantity but gradual progress of Iranian scientists in various scientific fields made them self-confident and thus returned the country's valuable scientific resources. This scientific progress, especially in the last 15 years, improved Iran’s position in global ranking and expanded the knowledge production of Iran to about 1.5 percent according to reliable scientific survey centers.
Dezfouli noted other scientific achievements of Iran in the recent years and said, “so far, the higher education of our country has seen outstanding with significant advancement. Unfortunately our budget for research and development is not comparable to other countries, although our scientists are very motived which has led to such a progress."
Dezfouli described the goals of Mustafa (pbuh) Prize and said, “to compete on the world stage, to be able to expand the efforts and advancements in a global scale and to improve the ability of Iranian and Muslim scientists, initiatives such as Mustafa (pbuh) Prize has been designed. This Prize is aimed at those Muslim scientists who have been able to carry out outstanding research and expand the frontiers of knowledge.”
He went on to add that “Mustafa (pbuh) Prize could be used as a model for the Islamic world to engage Muslim scholars and increase cooperation and collaboration between Islamic World’s scientists."
The first edition of Mustafa (pbuh) Prize will be held on 24-29 Dec. 2015 in Tehran, Iran.
MS/PR