One of the main organizations of science and technology of our country is the Vice-Presidency for science and technology affairs. Without a doubt, the role of public relations of this area is significantly important in science-related informing and dialogue making in the society. A public relations center which has carried out several activities over the past years and played a significant role in development and acquiring scientific topics in the society. Now the quality of this center must be assessed by experts and elites of the society, so that any one this individuals can provide their own insight on dialogue making in scientific areas among society members.

According to the public relations and information center of the Vice-Presidency for science and technology affairs quoted by ELmna, this time this news site has interviewed Parviz Karami, secretary of headquarter of developing culture of science, technology, and knowledge-based economy, advisor to the vice president for science and technology affairs and head of public relations center of this headquarter.

ELMNA: Before we start our interview, why do you professionally follow the media work and recognize it as your occupation?

In the name of God. At first, I want to thank the news sites of ELMNA, members of which has had acceptable activities over their short period of establishment. I know that your members are revolution educators, and I thank God that the fruit of Islamic revolution is now observed by centers such as ELMNA. As you mentioned, the major part of my work is related to media in the field of culture and art. My passion and education has been media. I spent a period of time in art and culture organization of Tehran municipality and ministry of culture and Islamic guidance. This passion and experience in media has led me into works related to media and journalism, even if it is not directly related to media. For your information (continues with laughter), I was managing director and editor of “Javan” newspaper, vice president of “Hamshahri” newspaper, managing Director of “Borna” news agency, and member of IRNA Policy Council. In addition, my major contribution to the government environment has been in the culture, art and media areas. At one point, I was invited to be the vice president for science and technology affairs. At first, I had insufficient information about the area of science and technology. I thought it was a tiring and difficult job, despite being familiarized with the activities and actions performed in the field of science and technology in the national youth organization of ministry of education and culture. As I said before, my interest in information, promotion and culture-building areas led to my current position. In addition, since technology and science were not properly introduced to the society, I was curious to come and try my luck in this area.  

I entered this area with this presupposition and mentality and took the position of advisor to the vice president for science and technology affairs. They suggested a position at the center of information and public relations of Iran national science foundation. I accepted this responsibility, and ever since that, this question has always been on mind that why despite many serious advancements in the science and technology field of Iran, the output of these progresses are not tangible in the society. I tried to find an answer for my question, for which I assessed the pathology of this area, both in the personal and organizational forms. Simultaneously with other assessments and counseling, I evaluated studies conducted in this area and ordered for new studies. Today, we act based on the results of those studies, and we realized that our press, news agencies, television, national media and organs and individuals, who are active in this field, have outputs. However, their structure does not have the same consistency observed in developed countries. In addition, these individuals have inadequate knowledge about promotion and culture building in this area. As a result, instead of considering myself the head of information and public relations center of the Vice-Presidency for science and technology affairs, I consider my outlook and goal as custodian of one of the main strategic plan of the comprehensive scientific plan of the country in the field of science and technology (macro strategy 2 maps). Whenever I talk with my media or organizational colleagues or other co-workers at scientific associations, they say that the information and public relations center must be in fact the information center of science and technology of the country.

When I talked about my vision and purpose with my colleagues at the Vice-Presidency, we discussed the required infrastructures and elements in this regard, including organizations, units, structures, individuals, NGOs and associations, which were first identified and then convergence was created among them. The Vice-Presidency for science and technology affairs is a supraministry coordinating and policy-making body, duty of which is to create coordination among circles, institutes and organizations that are active in the field of science and technology. Therefore, I put this issue on the agenda of the center. We tried to identify and strengthen these assets with our friends, and at the same time, we recognized the damages, inadequacies, faults and weaknesses of the organization in order to be eliminated.

From the first days of my work, I tried to use this environment and get help from my friends by holding meetings with journal directors, journalists and IRIB managers due to my background of working in ministry of guidance, which was very difficult. We have different services in our newspapers and news agencies, which cover various fields, including culture, society, art, sport, politics and economy.

We had to try to add one page or column about science and technology services in newspapers and news agencies, which was less common at that time. Fortunately, today is better than that time. However, it should be noted that some of the old newspapers and medias have had such sections, including “Ettelaat”, “Keyhan”, “Jame-Jam” and “Hamshahri” newspapers. However, the majority of these sections were either extremely specialized or working on just one specific topic. Our main goal was generalization of science and technology discourse and its promotion in the society, which has been repeatedly introduced by our Supreme Leader as a key phrase. In this regard, our intelligent Supreme Leader has stated that science and technology dialogue must be generalized in the society if we want to spread the use of science and technology in our country.

Therefore, while I appreciate the work of my friends in this regard, in addition the efforts of the media and news agencies, we have assessed their work until today. In other words, we used the experiences of our colleagues in this area. In addition, after the formation of these services or columns and pages, we had meetings with news and media authorities to detect the challenges and defects in the area of science and technology media. In this regard, one of the most important problems included lack of active and experiences human resources. We initiated the designing of a training course to scientifically improve journalists. To date, two courses have been held for our media colleagues at the location of the Vice-Presidency for science and technology affairs, one with the cooperation of academic center for education, culture and research and one with university of science and culture and school of news. Our special priority was the journalists who worked in this area. However, we accepted individuals from other fields as well.

Along with these courses, we designed and implemented science and technology tours for media agents to learn about field work. These tours are still being implemented. In fact, these tours are similar to educational workshops. Several different workshops have been provided for journalists. In addition, we invited media colleagues to meetings of various vice presidencies, even those attended by Dr. Sattari. This has been mainly due to the fact that similar to an expert or manager, who will be experienced if being entered into the work area, journalists will also be successful in their job if they dominate their field. However, there are some limitations to this task. News agencies are continuously invited to meetings to learn about the problems in person. We even tried to take them with us on provincial travels of Sattari as well. Nevertheless, we took them on tours due to some restrictions. We also held some friendly meetings with media agents on Wednesdays of every week. However, the regular holding of these meetings has been changed, which is our own problem and must be resolved. We attempted to continuously hold such meetings over the past year. For these meetings, we invite presidents of headquarters and deputies, where I am not the only person who talks. Discussions are scheduled, in which the head of a related section explains notes, perspectives and activities and journalists provide their own insights and ask questions about ambiguities of a specific area. This meetings have been effectively improved the knowledge and association of journalists.

In line with these activities and necessity of more specific activity for promotion and culture building and along with 14 technology headquarters of the Vice-Presidency, a special headquarter called “knowledge-based science, technology and economy development headquarter” has been established with the emphasis of Sattari, the vice president for science and technology affairs, due to the vision plan and comprehensive science map and policies expressed by our Supreme Leader. In fact, this headquarter completes the work of the information center of the Vice-Presidency with more comprehensive goals. The level of this headquarter, which was formed as a steering headquarter from the heart of the Vice-Presidency along with other headquarters, is higher than the other headquarters. In addition, this headquarter, secretary and vice president of which are myself and Dr. Sattari, respectively, has been developed with the aim of culture building in the area of knowledge-based economy. As you know, one of the most important mission of this headquarter is promotion and culture building of knowledge-based science, technology and economy in the society. Another purpose of this headquarter is focusing on knowledge-based economy and creating discourse on science and technology in the society. Cooperation of this headquarter with other steering technology headquarters of the Vice-Presidency, organizations, NGOs, public organization, especially IRIB, research centers of universities, science and technology parks and technology centers has led to design of joint projects and acceptable activities over a short period of time.

However, one of the best supports of this headquarter was turning the information and public relations center of the headquarter into the information and public relations center of science and technology of the country before the establishment of the headquarter as a united organization. In this regard, our level of success must be determined by your audience; however, this has been our claim and challenge, for which we have had many achievements.

ELMNA: According to the points presented by you about the fact that public relations center of the Vice-Presidency for science and technology affairs is definitely the media for science and technology of the country, and since you believe that the audience must determine whether or not you were able to obtain this achievement, what is the main weakness involved in lack of attention of community members to scientific subjects?

I think the majority of this weakness is related to ourselves, meaning trusted and manufacturing organizations that are active in the field of science and technology and media activists of this field. For instance, the most prominent athletes, including soccer players, wrestlers and volleyball player, present their work themselves. Therefore, their introduction to the society creates more motivation in society members to learn about them. It means that people are more eager to know about soccer, its members and controversies. This also occurs in other sports. This increased thirst for knowledge leads to increased help provided by related individuals. As you see, the number of sport media increases every day since they have more fans and demand and supply have raised in this area.

In my opinion, those who are involved in the cycle of science and technology distance themselves from expressing the issues of this field. In this regard, you can add lack of appropriate knowledge about appropriate presentation of contents, which goes back to the beginning of their work. For instance, it rarely occurs that university professors talk about their achievements with media. The next point is that subjects generally have a complication, lack of clarity and technical modifications. Given the hard and special nature of tasks and being involved in a serious of hard mathematical equations gradually reduce the attractiveness of the area, leading to inclusion of individuals to know about it. The next issue is lack of sufficient expert science journalists in the society. A journalist who dominates the subject and can present it to the society with ease. For instance, the fact that a small planet passed the earth is just a sentence. The method to explain about an issue is important. For example, if this passing of a small planet is shown in the form of an animation or a story, where the creativity of an author, as well as visual and audial techniques are used, we can attract the attention of many individuals. When we search in life of scientists of various fields, we see that their first interest was formed in childhood in a completely unprofessional and non-laboratory environment.

It penetrates the mind of a person and encourages them to move toward the scientific area. Then, he gets involved in technical issues and scientific complications, and becomes an inventor at the end. This is similar to presenting a product to people without proper packaging and presentation. Such product will remain in storage units of these shops even with the best quality. We need to have proper technique if a type of science or technology is going to be promoted in the society through scientific dialogues.

I take the opportunity to note that if you see the topics of science and technology have emerged in the society, we owe it to our supreme leader. I assure you that if such perspective, emphasis and following-up was not present in the society, we would not have the current situation of Iran. Using the media position of the Supreme leader has led to the highlighting of science and technology in the society. You cannot find a speech of this great person in the past 10-15 years, in which he did not emphasize the concepts of science and technology, recognizing its importance, condition and necessity. This attention to scientific issues by the Supreme Leader has led to more focus on science and technology in our community. We would not have our current scientific ranks in the world in there was a lack of emphasis on these issues by the Supreme Leader.

Accurate determining of scientific topics and their generalization in the society leads to attractive social support. When you see the achievements, explorations and scientific inventions of other countries, especially where low attention has been paid to this area, it was the common people, wealthy people and enthusiasts of this field, who identified the elites, scientists and inventors and supported their work. If similar subjects were not introduced to the society by scientists themselves, these inventions and explorations would be lost and never seen.

ELMNA: That is exactly right. However, regarding your first note that said researchers, professors, academics and scientific associations and universities are to be blamed due to lack of proper informing and activities of top universities of the country in order to promote science, do you have any plans for public affairs and announcements of these centers, similar to plans they have for interviewers, or it would lead to twofoldness of systems, or it is one of the duties of the ministry of science?

As I said before, we have extreme shortages in this area, and we significantly appreciate those who are eager to work in this area. However, it should be noted that there is an organizational breakdown between us and the various ministries. In my own area of work, I have good collaborations with Boroojerdi, who really tries and is an expert in her own area, and we performed many joint projects. Nevertheless, despite the number of human resources and the current structure of this area, we do not have an acceptable output and we have be way better than this.

ELMNA: I also referred to this issue that if we had the statistics of 30 top universities of the country, we could easily detect the problem in lack of information.

Firstly, I would like to appreciate the work of all those, who are active in this area. However, I want to say that if public affair and information centers would perform their tasks accurately, we would have a better condition regarding notifications, and promotion and culture building of science and technology. Currently, there have been acceptable activities in this regard, leading to a considerable advancement. Nevertheless, this national mission has not be well defined for individuals. I do not know if this weakness is in individuals or in structure, but I think that a journal, that will not be named, has more ability to inform society members, compared to public affairs of a large university in one of our provinces. This is a problem for me and my colleagues.

ELMNA: Well, those journals are definitely doing a great job.

Yes, that is why that journal is popular, but the public affairs center of a university, which as a scientific credibility, is not that successful. We deliberated over this issue to solve the problems and even held some educational course, which could not be attended due to distance to the location of courses. Currently, we are thinking about the establishment of a virtual education and information system to promote and build culture in the field of science and technology. Our work was initiated with websites of Rahnemoon, Wikiwall, Fanavard, Samak, and Aparat and telegram channels.

ELMNA: Do you mean the public affairs of universities and scientific centers?

Yes. In fact, this was the main reason for establishing two journals of “Danesh-Bonyan (knowledge-based)” and “SarAmad”. We also have some plans for non-virtual events. As you know, we have designed nationwide and periodic meetings in this regard. It means that we want to create a current that is covered by the media, newspapers, individuals, and tribunes. In addition, the best phenomenon occurred in this regard was visiting of science and technology centers by the Supreme Leader and the president of Iran. This is our goal: identification of technologists and elites and introducing them to the society. Every year, we have the Alameh Tabatabaei Prize, that is given to the best elites of the country or scientific figures, who have been selected from various scientific fields. Every year, 40 of these individuals are selected by a judging panel and their work is appreciated. It means that any conference or festival is held in line with our goal, which is detection and introduction of elites. Some of the events held in this regard include the festival of from science to practice, meeting with activists of knowledge-based economy, pharmaceutical plant festivals, biotechnology, nano, stem cells, and marine students.

ELMNA: I have two other questions for you, one is personal and the other is related to your status. In terms of your status, have you had any plans for rewarding scientific journals? Similar to prizes provided in the press.

We held the first round of festival of science and technology press. We also have planned for the second round of this event, which will be held with the cooperation of press office of the ministry of guidance, which has an organizational status in this regard. In addition, the society of science and technology press will collaborate with these festivals.

ELMNA: Now the personal question: could you name a scientific journalist who has had great activities in this area and you are satisfied with his work?

I can say that despite all of the mentioned problems in the field of scientific journalism, which might be due to my high expectations, I have many friends in various journals, including Danestaniha, Hamshahri, Ettelaat, Keyhan, Daneshmand, ISNA, Mehr and Fars and many other journals, who are working properly and try their best. However, these mentioned journals are for the public and there are some other journals that work very professionally.

I can also name Gitanama and Peyvast, and say that interesting programs have lately been created in various channels of IRIB. These channels are doing a great job, and blessed be the ELMNA news agency, that is being added to the list of media. However, this is not enough and there must be many more. Given our scientific status in the region and the world, our journalists have not found the status that they deserve, neither in terms of number no regarding their power. Therefore, we need to increase both the number and ability of these individuals.

ELMNA: Let us talk about “Danesh-Bonyan” and “SarAmad” journals. Are they scientific journals?

“SarAmad” is not just a scientific journal. Its title was selected since it was support to be a promotional, scientific, educational and cultural journal for the elites and top talents, who are supported by the national elites foundation. Here, I wanted to use this opportunity to say that the national elites foundation has no members and no can have such claims, even if they are elites and experts. A person who obtained the score of 1-150 in mathematics, 1-100 in experimental sciences, 1-100 in humanities, or 1-50 in arts, will be supported by the foundation for one year. However, they are not a member to obtain rewards and facilities that include a comprehensive basket of facilities. If these individuals are able to stay dynamic in a year and present articles and assignments based on indicators determined by the foundation, they will receive support from the foundation for another year. These support will end when they stop their dynamic activities. Therefore, it is safe to say that the foundation has no members.

ELMNA: So it is just a supportive organization.

Exactly. It is a policy-making, supportive and facilitating organization that is affiliated with none of the other organizations. According to the strategic plan of the country regarding the affairs of elites, the first task of this foundation is support of elite training universities. We have about 20 elite training universities, which obtain a series of support from national elites foundation and perform some assignments. The national elites foundation then supports elites groups and talented individuals. This support is carried out in the form of educational prizes with an acceptable comprehensiveness and variety, or as cultural rewards and educational and research facilities.

ELMNA: How many people are supported by the foundation today?

Currently, about 15000 individuals are added every years depending on our budget and facilities. However, they must remain dynamic for us to continue this support. If a person loses his dynamic activities in a related field, their support will not continue. For instance, those who obtain gold, silver and bronze medals are covered by the foundation. The same person will not obtain this support if he does not receive another medal or write another article and his educational situation declines. Some people interview with journalists and newspapers, stating that they are inventors and members of the national elites foundation. But that is not true. They invent something, which must be evaluated at first and be ranked among other patents. If its validity is confirmed, then they can obtain the support of the foundation. In proportion to the level of inventions, their inventions are assessed and categorized in three levels. After that, they receive supports or promotional facilities or are introduced to a technology park or a factory by the foundation based on the level of their patents. At the end of this stage, the support will end and activities that were supposed to be performed, were carried out. It does not mean that you are the member of the foundation for the rest of your life, unless you invent something else.

ELMNA: Yes, you were talking about “SarAmad”.

This journal was established for transfer of experiences and promotion and culture building for top talents of our society. However, the actual status of “SarAmad” in the community must be determined by its audiences, who are mainly our elites and talents. Nevertheless, this journal is sent to our representatives, authorities, academics, governors and a number of researchers.

However, what is the goal of “SarAmad”? This journal aims to identify, introduce and recognize our talented people to the society. In addition, these elites can learn about especial individuals of their own level through explaining about their success or failure. Here, we introduce both successful and failed individuals to the society, since the majority of talented individuals enter the path of elites and are supported by the foundation immediately after obtaining a considerable score in the university entrance exam. However, they are still not elites. In this path, we need to teach these individuals the causes of success or failure in this field. We talk about the life of those who are active in technical, entrepreneurial, research and scientific areas. In addition, we familiarize these people with the scientific areas and their future activities; for instance, what is involved in entering the path of biotechnology or what is the market for this area and what kind of future awaits them. They learn about the main issues in the research and science fields, as well as the conditions of the market, commercialization and space that can be entered by the elites. They even learn about the lifestyle of those who work in this area.
But what about “knowledge-based”? “Knowledge-based” states that if we only considered a person and his expertise in “SarAmad”, today there is a larger society of knowledge-based companies and technologies aiming to improve the knowledge-based economy of the country. Here, our main goal is to detect and recognize subjects about knowledge-based economy and entrepreneurial ecosystem of growth centers and technology organizations. Knowledge-based economy was a new term, similar to economy of resistance, which was introduced and recommended by our Supreme Leader. In this space, there is a cycle of idea to product, commercialization and creation of wealth from science, leading to increased added value. In fact, knowledge-based economy is regarded as transferring idea to the cycle of commercialization. I sensed that this environment and literature is new and has not been properly emphasized by media, even our own colleagues. Therefore, the idea of production of a monthly journal called “Danesh-Bonyan” came to my mind. We followed up “knowledge-based” immediately after hearing from the Supreme Leader in his speech. During the obtaining of licenses for publishing this journal from ministry of guidance, I was selected as the director-in-chief. Following that, we established a team and an editorial. After the start of activities of Dr. Sattari in this journal, I became the editorial-in-chief of the journal.

ELMNA: Are you satisfied with “Danesh-Bonyan”? since you said the audience must determine the quality of “SarAmad” journal.

First of all, both of these journals are like my children and each has its own unique environment and goal. I am extremely satisfied with both of them. Today, the 24^th SarAmad and sixth Danesh-Bonyan journals are published and are on the path of growth. I hope that my satisfaction with these journals can be observed in the audiences of these journals. People have undergone many troubles for them, and I do not consider it as an administrative task. In fact, I put a lot of love and motivation into it. You know that in an administrative environment, you can come eight in the morning and go four in the afternoon and no one will pick up on you and you can even be more popular instead of managing two journals along your own work and trying not to decline professionally and maintain your position in a competitive environment. It is exactly like a wrestler who must always be fit and ready to defend his championship place. You might lose your position with the slightest weaknesses and controversies.

ELMNA: How do you select the first title and main subjects of the journals?

I have to explain about findings subjects or deciding about the cover of journal. In general, we try to be up-to-date and relate to our audience. In other words, chief editor of the journal is like the string of a praying bead. We have an experienced and motivated young editorial board. In addition, we have a good think tank comprised of deputies and specialists. In this editorial board and think tank, which is comprised of deputies of headquarters and a number friends outside of headquarter, various subjects are discussed. It means that we both monitor and explore subjects. We try to recognize the shortages in life and also talk about subjects that were previously introduced in “SarAmad” and “Danesh-Bonyan”. In addition, we see that which professions are emphasized in the next month. After that, we select the main topic of that month. We try to evaluate the technology and innovation ecosystem and the desired elite area.

ELMNA: Are you responsible for its selection?
Yes. I select most of the topics and cases due to my presence in various councils of the Vice-Presidency and foundation.
ELMNA: Do you have a plan for assessment of the public perception of various scientific contents?

This is a good question. We have aimed to fulfill the belief of Dr. Sattari and goals of the Vice-Presidency for science and technology affairs and national elites foundation. We should not enter the implementation area. We just need to be supporters and facilitators. Therefore, the public relations and information center of the Vice-Presidency and knowledge-based economy, technology and science development headquarter are not the executives of projects. They either detect and guide or support, monitor and create policies. Projects related to the area of science and technology dialogue creating or culture building and promotion of information area must be referred to the information and communication center. We either outsource the projects or try to use the ability of talented individuals, academics and researchers of this area. To date, we have not performed a project in the form of a specific plan. However, you know that many activities of the Vice-Presidency for science and technology affairs are related to the implementation of projects. It is safe to say that if you fairly consider the subject, you can see that the public information and communication center of the Vice-Presidency has three-four presentable tasks every day. But, yes, there are many other tasks that had to be carried out. We are still at the beginning of our path.

In addition, the same applies for the knowledge-based economy, technology and science development headquarter.

ELMNA: Some individuals criticized the event of Mustafa Prize, and published their criticism in some journals. What is your opinion about this issue?

 

The Mustafa Prize has been approved by supreme council for cultural revolution, and its implementation was assigned to the Vice-Presidency for science and technology affairs, which has a policy-making council consisting of various relevant ministries. In addition, head of this council is Sattari. Due to being dynamic and not performing the tasks, implementation of this event was assigned to a secretariat in Pardis technology park. As a result, head of the policy-making council is Sattari and manager of the secretariat is Safarinia. It is no surprise that some problems be observed in the process due to assigning the event to a contract secretariat and the first round of the event. However, this prize has been one of the successful measures taken by the Vice-Presidency. We hope that small defects in this regard be eliminated for the future rounds. I interfered with some arguments that occurred between media members and public relations contractor. However, some issues, such as inviting some people and proper informing, must be evaluated in the pathology process, which is planned to be established for the next rounds. Nevertheless, it should be noted that the work of staff in Pardis park was fairly unique. People worked 24/7 to assess every aspects of performing this event in the country. But occurring problems in an event is inevitable. We are planning for the next year and we hope that this event improves the reputation of Iran, if God wills.