The effectiveness of domestic Scientific research on Iran development Indicators

In recent decades, research has growth Increasingly in Iran and, consequently, the country has risen dramatically in world rankings, based on the number of scientific documents. Meanwhile, research policy makers of different societies have concentrated, more and more, on "the effectiveness of researches" and today, their main concern is to ensure that researches are truly contributing to achieve development goals. The issue of "use of research to improve society" has also been emphasized by Iran high-ranking managers and consultants in superior governmental documents, implying their agreement on the importance and necessity of it. Expert's view about the necessity for science to play a fundamental role in the process of society improvement, research impact assessment specialist's models in which they directly emphasize on "promotion of development scale" as the research final expected effect, and the proven high correlation between scientific progress and economic development of societies, create a reasonable expectation that as a consequent of "remarkable progress in research", Iran has experienced a tangible improvement in other aspects and this improvement has been reflected in development indicators. This expectation leads to a question which has been the main reason for this study to be implemented. The purpose of this study is to examine the effectiveness of Iran increasingly research growth in recent three decades on the country development. The study uses a Descriptive-Analytical method and valid secondary data have been the base of analyses. At first, the reliable development indicators for which data were available for a number of countries in an appropriate timeframe were selected. Next, the rank of Iran determined in any indicator among 215 countries (based on the number of countries in World Bank Web site). Then, the trend of Iran's research position was compared with the trend of Iran's position in terms of each development indicator. Results showed that despite a seventy step improvement in research quantity during past 31 years, Iran position have declined 6 steps in terms of GDP per capita during 25 years, 43 steps in terms of inflation rate during 35 years, and 7 steps based on Ecological Footprint Index during 19 years. In other words, Iran hasn’t experienced an acceptable improvement in development level which could be seen as the consequence of its remarkable growth in research. As a conclusion, a shift in all Iran research stakeholder's perspective is necessary from "quantity-oriented view" to "impact-oriented view".