A glance at Iran’s path of progress

Iran has been striving to produce knowledge by taking advantage of its assets for many years and has achieved great achievements in this way.

More than four decades since the victory of the Islamic Revolution, a great leap has been made in science, technology and research in the country, and many peaks of honor, which were previously the monopoly of a few advanced countries, have been scaled by the elite Iranian youth.

Scientific advances and the Islamic Republic's acquisition of some new technologies in recent years have been such that they have greatly worried the West, leading to intensified pressures and sanctions under various pretexts in order to check them.

The countries that have advanced in science and technology try to have it exclusively in their possession, and prevent especially those nations that follow an independent policy from standing on their own feet.

The aim of the hegemonic powers in sanctioning independent countries is in fact to prevent their progress and choke any economic, scientific, technological and other areas of growth in them.

If the status of countries in the world is improved, the technological and scientific monopoly that exists mostly in Western countries will be broken and dependence on them will be reduced.

Many of the developments in the West today have their origins in others. Various disciplines of knowledge existed in many countries but they were neglected. That was when the West pounced on the chance to acquire and develop them, making access to them subject to paying exorbitant sums.

After the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Iran opted to follow the path of progress with its internal ability in the face of economic and scientific sanctions.

It is not an exaggeration to say that the hostilities of the US and the West with Iran are to prevent the progress that has been achieved during the last four decades.

Today, despite the all-out attack of global arrogance and sanctions, Iran's Islamic Revolution is dearly seated in the hearts of the freedom-loving people of the world, and its progress and greatness is increasing every day.

According to Science-Metrix, a data-analysis company in Montreal, Canada, scientific output grew 11 times faster in Iran than the world average, faster than any other country, in 2010.

A survey of the number of scientific publications listed in the Web of Science database showed that growth in West Asia – mostly in Turkey and Iran – was nearly four times faster than the world average.

Eric Archambault, the author of the detailed report on “geopolitical shifts in knowledge creation” since 1980, noted that Iran’s publications had emphasized inorganic and nuclear chemistry, nuclear and particle physics and nuclear engineering. Publications in nuclear engineering grew 250 times faster than the world average – although medical and agricultural research also increased.

Before the Islamic Revolution, there was no significant indigenous technology in Iran, apart from some handicrafts and other traditional industries. Iranian technicians were mostly mere operators of foreign equipment.

Almost all advances in indigenous technology relate to after the revolution. In recent years, Iran has witnessed numerous scientific and technological achievements in such fields as nuclear, nano, biotechnology, rocketry, stem cells, aerospace, recombinant drugs, and medicine.

Iran's forays into new sciences territories such as lasers, microelectronics, robotics, hardware development and construction of supercomputers, software development and extensive use of computer science are among its other achievements.

Science and research have a long tradition in Iran, but for many years the country was kept in the throes of colonial and imperial powers which smothered any hope of progress and glory and nipped any intellectual movement in the bud.

With the Islamic Revolution, the necessary ground was created for the country's youth to move forward. The national drive to bridge the scientific and technological gap with developed countries is an issue that Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has always emphasized.

The advances achieved by Iranian scientists and scientific centers during the past four decades are so important and valuable that they cannot be compared to any other historical period.

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