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quality and the quantity of education should be compatible with one another in
Iranian academia. To achieve this, various policies were considered. In the first step,
writing articles and publishing books was considered as a basic condition for pro-
moting of faculty members. For the degree of associate professorship and professor-
ship, lecturer prowling fell sharply. In fact, the main reason to research trends among
universities members was an increase in their salary. The second policy for increas-
ing the Iran’s research position was establishment of postgraduate courses in many
universities. The third policy was to emphasize on increasing the number of research
journals, scientific associations, science parks, and research centers. As a result, the
latest statistics indicated that in 2015–2016 school year, Iran has more than 4.3 mil-
lion students and 68,552 faculty members who are working at about 100 state uni-
versities, 350 nongovernmental universities, and 740 research centers. Madhuoshi
and Niazi ( 2010 ) in their article entitled “Review and Explaining Status of Iran’s
Higher Education in the World” compared Iran’s situation with 31 countries in vari-
ous indicators such as student-teacher ratio, the number of researchers per million
people, and the cost of higher education to GDP based on UNESCO information
(2008–2007) and concluded that the Iran situation in higher education is same as
developing countries and higher than Middle East countries.
Qualitative Progress
The Islamic Republic’s 20-Year National Vision foresees Iran ascending to the top tier
“in the areas of economy, science and technology in the western South Asia region
(which includes Central Asia, Kyrgyz regions, the Middle East and neighboring coun-
tries)” (Pargoo 2016 ). Supreme leader of Iran, Mr. Khamenei, has called for the
advancement of a knowledge-based economy and, in this vein, support for higher edu-
cation research. Indeed, in order to strengthen Iran’s position in the field of research,
the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology has carried out various actions over
the past decade. This section of the paper refers to some of these measures:
Establishing of Centers, Units, and Research Groups
According to the Institute for Research and Planning in Higher Education (IRPHE)
in 2011, the council of higher education of the Ministry of Science, Research and
Technology has issued 613 licenses for establishing new research units. Of these,
207 permit licenses belong to nongovernmental centers, units, and research and 406
belong to government. Moreover, the number of scientific associations from 159 in
2005 has increased to 259 in 2011 and has grown by 2.4%. A very important policy
developed for higher education that was carried out in 2011 was the establishment
of centers of excellence in the universities across the nation. IRPHE report showed
that these centers amounted to 132(IRPHE 2012 ).
A.M. Arani et al.