Mohammad Farhadi, Iranian Minister of Science, Research and Technology, made the announcement during the commemoration ceremony of the 30th session of the Khwarizmi International Award (KIA) held in Tehran on Monday.
Speaking at the ceremony, Farhadi maintained that in the span of 30 years of continuous holding of the Award, nearly 1,000 innovation and research projects have been introduced as winners.
He noted the increase in international interactions as one of the positive outcomes of holding such competitions, saying this factor can improve Iran’s scientific position on the global scale.
According to him, foreign researchers who are invited to such events in Iran get a chance to become introduced to the country’s various scientific advancements and obtain a new perspective of the Islamic Republic.
“Iran’s scientific ranking in ISI and Scopus is 16th at the international level, and first in the Middle East and the Islamic world,” he said, adding “according to Leiden ranking, 14 universities in Iran are among the top-tier universities in the world and 200 Iranian scientists are among the world's top one percent scientists by citations.”
He went on to add, “while global scientific growth in 2015 has been reported with a six per cent increase compared to 2014, the growth in the same period has been reported with 17.5 per cent for Iran, which is quite significant.”
“Currently, about 1,000 knowledge-based companies are situated at 39 science and technology parks in Iran, and have had over $100 million exports in 2014-2015,” he said.
According to Farhadi, at present 235 joint research projects are underway with a number of prestigious universities in the world; “in terms of Global Innovation Index, Iran’s ranking in 2016 has improved 28 places compared to 2015,” he added.
The Khwarizmi International Award was established in 1987 by Iranian Research Organization for Science and Technology IROST, affiliated to the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology. Each year, the Award recognizes outstanding contribution, invention or innovation from across the world. In this year’s edition of the completion, in addition to a number of Iranian scientists, six foreign researchers managed to win the award from Italy, Canada, Sweden, Tunisia, Russia and Spain.
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