Iran’s talented, educated youth have consistently cultivated the nation’s public image as one characterized by vibrancy and motivation to push the boundaries. Whether mathematicians, computer scientists, anthropologists or artists, Iranians have carved out a universal reputation as hard-working and creative, even though the lion’s share of this brilliance is bearing fruit overseas, not at home.
Over time, the country’s name has become a shorthand for its deep-seated brain drain, sapping the Islamic Republic’s strength to address challenges and deliver for its people. The authorities routinely complain about this human capital flight coming at the expense of the nation’s progress, and affirm their commitment to containing it, but they have done little to overturn this irretrievable loss of elites.
Even though US and European universities being turbocharged by scholars from Iran equipped with the capabilities and sophistication needed to transform academia is an indication that the country has much to offer to the world and that its human capital is immense, it also portends a woeful scenario in which Iran will be devoid of its best minds and the most important tasks will be left to those who are not qualified to carry them out.
As more intellectuals leave their homeland behind to pursue opportunity and excellence elsewhere, the government finds it expedient to objectify science so that at least nominally, it remains an effective stakeholder of knowledge-driven development.
Officials of President Ebrahim Raisi’s administration are bragging about the giant leaps Iran has made in science and its strides toward becoming a hub of knowledge in the Middle East, citing the Scopus database showing Iran as ranking 15th in the world in international scientific abstracts and citations, overtaking Switzerland, Belgium and Austria in the number of academic publications.
The frequency of publications of peer-reviewed papers has been referenced by the Iranian government as a spectacle of the nation’s leading position in scientific output and its status as a developed country, notwithstanding the abysmal economic metrics that paint a dim picture of the people’s livelihoods under years of crushing sanctions.
Also, following the instructions of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, substantial budgets are being allocated to startups and accelerators to innovate transportation, housing, information technology, banking and industrial solutions as well as sanctions evasions and workarounds.
Yet the government’s dogged push to incentivize increased scientific output in the form of journal papers hasn’t yielded reliable research or groundbreaking discoveries, and instead has begotten corrupt, unethical practices in a ferocious competition to churn out more quantifiable artifacts that can boost international rankings.
Copyright violations and plagiarism are some of the practices gaining currency and being unambiguously condoned by the government.
In 2018, Science magazine and Retraction Watch identified Iran as the world’s top country in terms of the number of published papers retracted for plagiarism. A study by the Journal of the Medical Library Association found in 2014 that Iran had the world’s third most retractions of biomedical research papers due to plagiarism, at 42.9%.
Plagiarism by established researchers or younger scholars living in Iran only scratches the surface of a brewing crisis of academic integrity as the most proficient scientists emigrate to other countries while those who remain are the least ambitious ones commissioned to enliven government agendas.
Today, there are hundreds of private institutions in major cities that openly advertise the drafting of master’s and PhD dissertations at fixed prices, and the Ministry of Science, Research and Education or other government agencies have never scrutinized them or tried to shutter such businesses.
One “dissertation outsourcing” institution in Tehran charges postgraduate students a total of 135 million rials (US$450) to choose a subject, draft the proposal and complete the full text on their behalf.
With living conditions growing more unsustainable, civil liberties receding, economic sanctions continuing and international integration remaining elusive, Iranians’ emigration to European and North American destinations is not merely a social thrust but a political crisis of epidemic proportions: Iran being hollowed out of its best professionals, practitioners, experts and academics.
According to the International Organization for Migration, Iran ranked No 6 among Asian countries in total refugees and asylum seekers last year, and the No 56 country of origin of international migrants. On average, 50,000 people move out of Iran, a country of about 84 million, every year.
Doctors and nurses filing for early retirement and seeking job opportunities elsewhere is morphing into the new normal, a consistent pattern. The head of the Iranian Nursing Organization recently told local media that on average, 100 to 150 nurses migrate to other countries every month.
In a recent paper in The Lancet, it was claimed that during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, more than 3,000 Iranian physicians applied for emigration.
Such reports indicate that the most qualified, talented Iranians are departing, while key managerial, advisory, technical and expert vacancies are being occupied by those who are able to secure them through nepotistic connections or corrupt lobbies.
The country is being handed down to a coterie of clerics opposed to Iran’s international integration and young technocrats who have simply not received proper education or don’t have the skills to run either the public or the private sector and satisfy the people’s demands.
More alarmingly, universities are being stripped of their essential function, as constant government interference increasingly makes them ideologically oriented and ridden with political indoctrination instead of pure science, especially in humanities and social sciences, which the authorities insist should be fused with Islamic tenets.
Nationalistic publicity continues to be in full gear and the authorities don’t equivocate when marketing the Islamic Republic as a frontrunner in science and technology. But things on the ground are moving in a different direction.
Young executives being educated and employed in different sectors are hard-pressed to comprehend and then to respond to a diverse range of needs, be it mitigation of the Covid-19 pandemic or the handling of the nation’s despondent aviation industry.
Kourosh Ziabari is an Iranian journalist. A Chevening Scholarships alumnus, he has reported on grants by the Council of Europe, UNESCO and Deutsche Welle. He is a 2021 Dag Hammarskjold Fund for Journalists fellow and a 2022 World Press Institute fellow. In 2015, he reported from the United States, Malaysia and Pakistan on a Senior Journalists Seminar fellowship by the East-West Center. Follow him on Twitter @KZiabari.