Iran's share of global science production increased 19-fold after the Islamic Revolution
Tehran (Basirat) :A group of academic elites of the country—including CEOs of knowledge-based enterprises; prominent academics who have returned from abroad; top ranking participants of Olympiads, cross-country contests and scientific festivals; outstanding academic researchers from different universities; exceptionally talented students as well as students ranking top in the 2018 cross-country university entrance exam—met with the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Khamenei, this morning October 17, 2018.
![Iran's share of global science production increased 19-fold after the Islamic Revolution Iran's share of global science production increased 19-fold after the Islamic Revolution](/files/en/news/2018/10/17/22308_250.jpg)
In this meeting, Ayatollah Khamenei urged officials to benefit from the ideas
and recommendations of the academics in order to improve the country’s affairs
and said: The intellectual elites[‘s ideas and suggestions] should be benefited from in planning the matters of the country. Some outstanding talents enjoy both
a great capability of thinking and management skills— which must be made use of.
Ayatollah Khamenei mentioned that Iran should safeguard its entity via
scientific development by stating: If we do not advance in science, our enemies'
threats will last permanently.
The Leader of the Islamic Revolution held: Today human science faces limits; our
academic elites should participate in pushing the limits.
Ayatollah Khamenei attributed nation’s falling behind world’s scientific growth
to neglecting science during the monarchical rules of the Pahlavis and Qajars
over Iran, and maintained: We have lagged behind the global scientific movement
for 200 years,: this is because of the Iranian talent and academic elite have
been ignored.
The Supreme Leader went on to say: This talent has always existed in Iran
throughout history and it stems from great personalities like Farabi, Avicenna,
and Khwarizmi, and others. However, why should our country lag behind the rest
of the world at a time when science has advanced at a great pace around the
world?— such that during the eras of Qajar and Pahlavi, our country turned into
one of the most backward countries in this respect.
Ayatollah Khamenei urged the academic and science professionals to promote
Iran’s share in science production; he asserted: Our country entails about one
percent of the world population; this, our share of human efforts should be at
least one percent. However, during the final years of the Pahlavi Regime, Iran
was producing about 1/10 percent of world science, which shows how backward we
used to be!
Ayatollah Khamenei added: Today, with God’s grace, we contribute in producing
science even more than our share, about 1.9 percent. This is great, yet we are
not satisfied; it should increase.
Ayatollah Khamenei praised Islamic Republic of Iran’s improvements in academic
activities compared to that of pre-Revolution and held: The establishment of the
first university in Iran, in 1934, till 44 years late—that is in 1978, we only
had 150,000 university students; whereas, today we have over 4 million
university students. The two different systems are revealed in these areas. We
should appreciate the Islamic Republic for this great move.
The Supreme Leader remarked that the establishment must collaborate with the
academics and intellectuals to further the development of the nation and said:
There should be a mutual exchange between the elites and the management system.
The government must provide services for the elites, not letting the elites be
left with no roles; because in this case, our country won’t advance. Today, it
is proved that nothing is more influential in the country’s development than the
human force. Human resources are a great capital and the enemies seek to take
this wealth away from the country. The enemy seeks scientific exclusion so no
other nation can gain power-producing and wealth-producing knowledge; thus, they
murder scientists of other countries. This does not only happen to us. During
the time the U.S. dominated Iraq, tens of Iraqi scientists were identified and
killed, so that Iraq would not progress in the absence of Saddam.
Referring to the elites’ national and international impact from different points
of view, Ayatollah Khamenei added: "the existence of tens of thousands of
elites, is from one point of view, indicative of an authentic and real image of
the country: a source for happiness and hope. Moreover, by benefiting from the
scientific elites, the frameworks of management of the country’s affairs will
promote: the elites’ opinions must be applied.”
He reminded his audience: "The young, active, enthusiastic, and hard-working
elites’ opinions should be used in various departments including oil industry.
Planning is needed for changing the petro-economy into an independent,
evidence-based and resilient economy.”
Ayatollah Khamenei reiterated: "If we advance scientifically, the threats of our
enemies will not last forever, and will perish.”
Then, he regarded another area of the academic elites’ influence as "playing a
role in breaking global borders of science” and went on to say, "In recent
centuries, our share of pushing the borders of science away has been very
little; we need to extend the borders of global knowledge and discoveries by
using the great capacity of Iranian scientific and academic elites.”
Ayatollah Khamenei emphasized: "All of us should be grateful to the Islamic
Republic and Imam Khomeini for putting an end to the bitter past and bringing
about the present advances.”
The Leader of the Revolution, then, offered a few recommendations with regard to
the elites. His first recommendation was on the necessity of mutual exchange
between elites and the management system of the country. In this regard he
stated: "On the one hand, the officials should work more seriously to exchange
with the academic and scientific elites, offer services to them and remove
obstacles in their way. On the other hand, the elites should make use of all
their capacity to help move the country forward.”
Ayatollah Khamenei described the qualified human resources and active and
forward-moving academic and scientific elites as a great wealth and reserve for
the nation, maintaining: "this source of wealth, just like all other resources,
is threatened by the avarice and exploitation of the Hegemonic system, so that
while getting advantage of the wealth to serve its own purposes, the hegemonic
system creates exclusion, in science and technology; that is, wealth-producing
and power-producing properties.”
He regarded "physical removal of the academic elites” as a method used by the
hegemonic system for taking the great treasure away from the nations and
mentioned—referring to the nuclear scientists of Iran: "In addition to the
physical removal, cultural deviation or occupying the elites with other affairs
is another method used by the hegemonic system; hence the officials and elites
should be aware and cautious in this regard.
Ayatollah Khamenei praised recent effort by a group of experts to delineate a
blueprint for progress, asserting: What a group of economists did recently made
me extremely happy: the Iranian economists felt responsible and addressed a
letter to the leader of the revolution regarding the issues of banking and
liquidity and foreign currency. Though we don’t know how much these opinions are
taken into account in the government, the fact that professors and young elites
feel responsible about the problems of the country is very pleasing.
Finally Ayatollah Khamenei ensured his audience that; "There exist some problems
regarding people’s livelihood—partly due to currency fluctuations. Yet, overall,
the true image of the country, is the opposite of what the hegemonic foreigners
seek to illustrate about dear Iran.
Source: english.khamenei.ir