Iran stands 15 in world science production

Head of the Islamic World Science Citation Center (ISC) Ja’far Mehrad announced Iran\'s astonishing growth in the world scientific output, and said the country ranks 15th among the world\'s top science producing countries. “At present, the Islamic Republic of Iran stands 15th in international science production,” Mehrad said on Sunday. He noted that Iranian researchers have contributed a 6.1% share to the world science production, and added that Iran stands above many western states, including Belgium, Denmark, Austria, Portugal, Norway, Finland and Greece. Mehrad had earlier stated that Iran\'s world rankings in different scientific scales have improved. “The Islamic Republic of Iran has improved its ranking to 16 in 2013 from 20 in 2012 in the scale of Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) and to 15 in 2013 from 17 in 2012 in the Scopus scale,” he said in June. He noted that reference to scientific journal articles written by Iranian scientists has increased in recent years which shows the quality of these articles. Also in 2012, Iranian Deputy Science, Research and Technology Minister Seyed Javad Sadatinejad boasted the country\'s astonishing progress in science and technology, and said Iran will be atop the regional nations in science and technology by 2025. \"Given the efforts made by the Islamic Iran\'s youths, we will rank first in the region in science and technology before 2025,\" Sadatinejad said. He reiterated that Iran at present ranks first in the region and ranks 12th in the world in nanotechnology, which shows the country\'s good status in producing science and technology which is the result of the efforts made by the Iranian scientists and researchers, specially the university students.