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Introduction
In 1981 because of political problems and turmoil, Iran’s Islamic government closed
all the universities for 3 years. Then, in 1984 the Cultural Revolution Committee
reopens them while many former professors and students had been expelled. Fifty-
three universities, colleges, and other higher education institutions were reformed in
four groups: engineering and technical sciences, literature and humanities, art, and
business and administrative sciences (MSRT 2009a). Governance of higher educa-
tion in Iran is dispersed among state-run, private (Azad), and distance-learning uni-
versities. At state-run universities, students must pass a centralized exam and are
accepted according to their exam rank and special privileges; it is free for all and
very competitive. At private universities, students must pass a centralized exam and
also pay tuition for full- or part-time programs (MSRT 2009b). Admission requires
a secondary school diploma and a passing score on the national university entrance
exam (Konkoor) (Rasian 2009 ). Iran’s higher education, based on financial resources
and administration, are divided into two main categories: public and private (non-
profit) institutions. In public higher education, the two ministries responsible for
postsecondary education are the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology and
Ministry of Health and Medical Education (Mehralizadeh et al. 2007 ). Iran’s univer-
sity population swelled from 180,000 in 1979 to more than 4 million in 2013; 64%
of its students are women and 40,000 are PhD students (Ameri Ameri 2013 ). Despite
the Iran poor political relationship with the USA and some other western countries,
during the last two decades, Iran’s scientific community remains productive, even
while economic sanctions make it difficult for universities to buy equipment or to
send faculty members to the western countries to attend scientific meetings
(Mohebbi and Mohebbi 2006 ). The Comprehensive Scientific Plan has been devised
based on about 51,000 pages of documents and includes 224 scientific projects that
must be implemented by the year 2025 (Etemad and Sobouti 2008 ; Shamsipur
2008 ). However, Iran has made considerable advances in science and technology
during the last two decades, and its scientific progress is reported to be the fastest in
the world (Dehqani 2016 ). The main objective of this paper is to explain the grow-
ing trend of research in higher education in Iran. Our approach in this paper is his-
torical and comparative. In fact, social policies and educational practices strongly
depend on history and the development of the societies in which they are embedded.
To capture this, we follow a historical approach in presenting state policies on
higher education research in Iran. We first briefly reviewed higher education in Iran.
In the next two steps, we will explain quantitative development and qualitative
dimension of higher education. The next section of paper focused on higher educa-
tion research challenges. The paper ends with conclusions.
A.M. Arani et al.