During 2015-2016, China had the highest emigration rate of foreign students in America (31%), followed by India (14%), South Korea (7%), Saudi Arabia (6%) and Canada (3%). With 12,356 students, Iran was ranked 11^th on this list.

According to the public relations and information center of the Vice-Presidency for science and technology affairs, the Asre-Eghtesad newspaper published a report with the title of “statistical conflicts in emigration of elites from Iran”, which is presented below:

After lack of consensus between research and science authorities of the country regarding the level of emigration of elites, known as brain drain, Parviz Karami, advisor to the vice president for science and technology affairs and head of communication and information center of the Vice-Presidency, defended the opinions of Sorena Sattari, the vice president for science and technology affairs in a letter and responded to the ambiguities and exaggerations in this regard, determining a prize of one billion IRR for anyone who can prove the statistics by presenting valid documents.

The response of the Vice-Presidency for science and technology affairs is, as follows:

Emigration Rate of Iran Is Lower than the International and European Countries’ Mean

According to valid international reports, a total of 231.4 million people emigrated from their countries in 2014. However, Iran was not recognized as one the main countries in this regard. In the reports by the organization for economic cooperation and development (2015) and global bank system (2016), Iran was not among the top 20 and 30 countries with the highest emigration rates, respectively.

In this regard, the emigration rate of Iran was 1.5% until 2015, which is lower than the international mean of 3.2%.

Moreover, according to the statistics provided by the American Institute of International Counseling and Law, the number of international students increased from 1.3 million in 1990 to five million in 2014, and Iran was not considered as one of the countries with the highest emigration rate of students. In this regard, the first four countries were China, Russia, South Korea and India (OECD, 2015). With 32,758 students, Iran was not among the top 10 countries with the highest emigration rate of students in OECD.

According to the last OECD report on emigrants, a total of 845 thousand Iranian emigrants exists in OECD countries, which is equal to 1.5% of the total population of the country and lower than the half of the global mean (32.%) and one-third of European countries (5%).

On the other hand, according to the report by American institute of immigration statistics (www.migrationpolicy.org), there were 1.4 million foreign students in America in 2015. This information is presented according to the number of issued F1 visas, duration of which is more than one year and is recognized as an educational visa. The origin countries of foreign students in America has also had a significant change. In 2015-2016, the highest number of foreign students (31%) were from China, followed by India (14%), South Korea (7%), Saudi Arabia (6%) and Canada (3%). However, Iran was ranked 11^th with 12356 students. 

 One Billion IRR Prize for Proving the Claim of Brain Drain in Iran

According to the published report in the technological and innovative analytical news headquarter on December 25^th 2017, a prize of one billion IRR (from the international monetary fund in 2009) has been considered for anyone who claims that Iran has ranked first in the world in terms of brain drain.

A section of this report is presented below:

These days, there is a huge insistence from the enemies of the country on emigration of Iranian talents, who have provided wrong statistics to prove this issue at any cost. This reminded us of the old saying of “you said it and I believed it, you insisted and I doubted”.

The analytical news headquarter aimed to collect valid news on this issue according to the mission of informing the Iranian community after increased debate over the emigration of Iranian elites from the country, imposed by a number of those who just claim to be lovers of Iran, which resulted in publishing several contents extracted from valid international statistics, which showed contradictory information in this respect.

In this short context, the writing team of the analytical news agency declared that a prize of one billion IRR will be allocated to anyone who can provide a valid document of the report of the international monetary fund in 2009.

It should be noted that if the claimed valid document from the international monetary fund in 2009 is presented by you or a journalist to the center, one billion IRR will also given to the presenter.

Significant Reduction in Immigration of Canada

According to the reports of immigration office of Canada (www.cic.gc.ca), the number of Iranian students in 2016 was 2354, which led to the ranking of 12 among the foreign students of Canada. In addition, the total number of Iranian immigrants of Canada was 11,665 in 2016, which has had a significant reduction, compared to the number of emigrants of 2015 (N=16,773).

For more information in this regard, you can refer to the website address of canadaimmigrants/Iranian-immigrants-canada.

After considering all of these issues, it is best to clean the media society of the country from all wrong and inaccurate statistics on emigration of elites once and for all and find and eliminate the barriers to this goals. 

PDF of the response published in Asre-Esghtesad Newspaper