Ibn Sina (Avicenna) (Persian: 980 – June 1037 CE), commonly known in the West as Avicenna, was a polymath who is regarded as one of the most significant physicians, astronomers, philosophers, and writers of the Islamic Golden Age and the father of early modern medicine. Of the 450 works he is believed to have written, around 240 have survived, including 150 on philosophy and 40 on medicine. His most famous works are The Book of Healing, a philosophical and scientific encyclopedia, and The Canon of Medicine, a medical encyclopedia which became a standard medical text at many medieval universities and remained in use as late as 1650. Besides philosophy and medicine, Avicenna's corpus includes writings on astronomy, alchemy, geography and geology, psychology, Islamic theology, logic, mathematics, physics, and works of poetry.

Iran after the Islamic Revolution

Iran's situation before the 1975 revolution

During the Pahlavi era, the industrial growth of our country went through a reverse process due to the negligence of the officials and also the intense interest of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in the appearances of industrial growth in the West; In this way, at first, industries producing consumer goods entered the country and established the import industry in the country. After that, they sought to create infrastructure industries, including steel, and at the same time, they also thought of creating a university and educating students. Therefore, due to the lack of development of local science and technical knowledge, as well as the lack of infrastructure development, these consumer industries were completely imported and established an import-oriented industry in Iran.
This disaster, i.e. the lack of communication and connection between consumer goods producing industries and infrastructure industries and universities, caused the country's industry to be permanently dependent and backward compared to other competitors, the effects of which are still evident in some industries such as automobile manufacturing.
Infrastructural industries, which are the basis and prerequisite of these consumer industries, had not been established in the country. On the other hand, each of these industries required the training of specialized manpower and local technical knowledge, whose academic infrastructure should have been created before this. This caused that, firstly, the government needed to import more raw materials day by day, and secondly, due to the lack of specialized manpower, it turned to imports even in the field of labor!
The movement of the country's universities in the direction of industrialization was neglected and the creation of a few universities in this field was not responsive and appropriate to this need.
In this regard, we can mention the University of Gilan, which was established to develop research and technology cooperation with West Germany. This university was established in 1977; In the event that many industries were imported from Germany to Iran many years ago, it was necessary to establish educational and scientific institutions for the training of specialists in Iran. Although the establishment of some universities had happened years before that, but paying attention to the history of the establishment of some technical universities in Iran clearly shows this neglect. Iran University of Science and Technology was established in 1341 and Sharif University of Technology in 1344.
Mohammadreza Pahlavi writes in the book Answer to History:

In addition to the lack of equipment, raw materials and communication tools, there was also a lack of technicians. We had recruited more than one million foreigners. I have already mentioned the neglect of the training of engineers, supervisors, executives and skilled workers, but their number was still not enough, and finally, despite everything, imports increased immeasurably. This caused an inflationary trend that I wanted to curb at any cost.

Despite the establishment of many universities during the Pahlavi era, the scientific process of our universities had stopped in its first stage, i.e. education-oriented. The share of the country in the production of science in the world at the end of the Pahlavi period was not proportional to the population ratio of Iran and Iranian universities. Explaining that a country that has one percent of the world's population should logically produce one percent of the world's articles; While in 1979 AD (1357 A.H.), Iran's share in world science production was about one-tenth percent. But after the victory of the Islamic Revolution until the middle of the 70s, the halt in the education-oriented phase ended and the country's scientific resurrection in research and science production began.
Iran after the Islamic Revolution
Iran's contribution to the world's science production was unproportional to its population and universities at the end of Pahlavi dynasty (only one-tenth percent in 1979), as logically, a country with 1% of the world's population should produce 1% of the world's articles. However, following the Islamic Revolution until the mid-90s, the halt in the education phase ended, and Iran's scientific renaissance in research and science production started.

Scientific trends in the Islamic Republic

Since the Islamic revolution, universities of Iran undergo four steps of scientific-academic progress just as all other countries:
Step 1: The education-oriented phase is the first scientific stage in all universities worldwide. During this phase, simply the relevant infrastructure is formed, and students are recruited and educated.

Step 2: Following the education-oriented phase, there is the research-oriented phase where students conduct research and write articles using their gained knowledge.
Step 3: In this phase, the research-oriented university is transformed into the technological university, as the articles written by students are promoted from purely scientific to operational, with technology-production orientation.

Step 4: In this phase, technology produced in universities impacts economy, and leads to job creation and increased national wealth.

Iran's scientific progress has been accelerated in the past two decades, with its main focus on research.

The driving engine of the country's scientific movement has moved at a very high speed in the past two decades, focusing on research.
It can be said that the fundamental difference between the thinking of the Islamic Republic and the Pahlavi regime was the belief in the ability of Iranian youth. This thought that the Iranian youth "can" and that the most difficult things are doable was a thought that was put forward by Imam Khomeini and Imam Khamenei and became a general belief among the people.

The Fastest Growth Rate in Scientific Production among other Countries
According to the report published by "New Scientist" scientific database in 2010, Iran had the fastest science production growth among all the countries worldwide, and its scientific growth rate was 11 times the world average based on Clarivit Analytics or ISI.

Iran's share in world science production has also increased from 0.07% in 1996 to 2% in 2020; That is, now our share of the world's science production is almost twice as our share of the world's population.

Iran's 36-step scientific improvement in the last 25 years
According to the results published by Scopus, the number of scientific documents registered in the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1996 was 842, and in 2022, the number of scientific documents in the country increased to 78,184. compared to 1996, it shows an increase of more than 90 times.

The state of the countries of the world in the production of science in 2022
Source: Scopus citation database