Dr. Hassan Rouhani has announced his plan for the 12^th government in different fields including science and technology.

According to the public relations and information center of the presidency vice presidency for science and technology affairs; science, technology and innovation are unequivocally among the most important origins of countries’ power whose importance have risen today. Relying on young and educated population and having heavy expenditure for developing the higher education, the Islamic Republic of Iran is in a period of time in which it should turn the made human infrastructure to practical capability relying on correct policies in the field of science, technology and innovation. The most important issues in this way declared by Dr. Hassan Rouhani, our president, for the 12^th government is as following:

·         Quantitative growth of higher education institutes and ignoring the qualitative growth;

·         Very unbalanced growth of higher education courses without regarding the true capacities of universities and higher education institutes;

·         Ignoring the educational missions of universities under the shadow of paying unbalanced attention to research;

·         Over-the-top and unbalanced emphasis on writing articles as the main index of generating science;

·         Not regarding the principals of academic dependency and freedom in collegiate atmospheres, and politics’ intervention in university and scientific-educational activities.

·         Board of trustees’ weak role in managing the universities.

·         Lack of clear definition of effective and synergizing place for actors of the policy-making and running system in the field of science, technology and innovation and lack of supplementary and constructive relation among ministry of science, research and technology; the supreme council for  science, research and technology; the supreme council of cultural revolution and how to coordinate with the others.

·         Weakness of laws in the field of knowledge-based companies and lack of proportionality between business rules (including trade law, laws of insurance and tax and others) and properties of knowledge-based activities.

·         Lack of economic discussion in science and technology field and university-oriented look to technology generation (domination of the concept of research and technology on the whole field of science and technology) which is different from the world reality i.e. technology generation is at the enterprise.

·         Challenges related to the inventor’s rights protection from patenting to inventions commercialization and necessity of transferring the intellectual property organization from the Judiciary to the government.

·         Challenges related to issues of commercialization and practicalization of bestowing facilities and aids to knowledge-based companies.

·         70 percent of identified knowledge-based companies are small and infant while the majority of technology development happen in large industries rather than small enterprises.

·         The problem of exporting technological products and losing exporting markets for some knowledge-based companies due to not having the necessary standards and not having top brands and for product export in international level.

·         Limitations in procedures of technology transfer, commercial communications  and cooperation with large technology-owner companies and scientific centers in the world (limitation in technological cooperation)

·         Problems in financial supply of scientific and technological projects and how to realize clearance in such projects.

·         Concentration of majority of scientific and technological activities in Tehran and few big cities and excluding the other eliteness capacity of the country from serious participation in scientific and researching activities.

·         Inefficiency in constructive interaction with expatriate Iranian scientists. Sometimes the security approaches prevent such interactions.

The Science, Technology and Innovation Plan

“The Innovative Society”; Reinforcing and Supporting Domestic Capabilities and International Cooperations with Pioneers

 6.1 Introduction

Science and technology is the origin of power, wealth and welfare of countries today. Innovation is one main driving motors of competitionability in all fields of the human’s life today. Innovation in technology leads to formation of the most competitionable goods and services and results in formation of “creative industries” in cultural and artistic fields. The innovation capacity, therefore, is the main property of the world pioneer and big enterprises as in military and security fields, the innovation is the infrastructure of forming security for all citizens of a country and national honor is a result from power in all soft and hard aspects. The culture and art field needs innovation in generating new beliefs and concepts via continuous re-thinking and also accepting the generated cultural constituents by members of that society and other societies. Eventually, science and technology turn to tangible outcomes for the society.

The science, technology and innovation system has 6 major aims:

1.      Promoting the human asset of the society as the outcome of the educational and vocational system

2.      Creating an innovator society; a society with citizens accepting innovation and providing it

3.      Promoting welfare and quality of the citizens’ life based on technology and innovation

4.      Increasing military and security power based on power-making technologies

5.      Generating wealth based on competitionable technologies and innovation distinguishing Iranian enterprises in international level

6.      Creating modern knowledge cited  globally.

The proposed plan for the science and technology at the 12^th government set based on the necessity of preparing the requirements of reaching these goals and recognitions achieved from the science and technology state in the country and also regarding other programs set to run the country at the 12^th government.

 

6.2  Policies

The 6 goals mentioned will be followed with 6 key policies:

6.2.1        Education: Integrated, Diverse and Fair Education System

In modern world, scientific and technological progress requires cohesion and integration in educational system and diversity in other dimensions of the education issue:

1.      Integrated teaching: Integration between generic and higher education, in educational tools, educational content and educational policies dimensions,

2.      Diverse teaching: Diversity in educational system includes the following:

·         Diversity in educational content proportional to local-regional properties, society demand and presentation capabilities (diversity in textbooks by schools’ choice and in universities’ syllabus by board of the trustees’ choice);

·         Diversity in methods of attracting collegiate student and faculties proportional to the universities level, talent diversity and using supplementary tools in assessing and evaluating the student (leaving behind the excessive competitive examinationism in educational system);

·         Diversity in educational goals for covering diverse demands and requirements of the society (diversity in approvals and certificates and increasing students’ right to choose);

·         Diversity in educational centers with the aim of grading and rating the higher education system and having management dependency and making policy proportional to the universities’ level;

·         Diversity in vocational and collegiate teachings with proper portion for each

3.      Fair teaching: Educational justice has 3 following aspects:

·         Justice in possession: Possession of equal educational opportunity for all citizens and taking compensating policies especially for citizens with no possession or less possession through bestowing scholarships to them;

·         Justice in proportionality of local properties and education: Creating necessary grounds for education based on ethnicity language and social and geographic properties of different regions of the country;

·         Justice in proportionality of capability and knowledge-supply: Developing the out of school education viewpoints to teach smart and top-talented people.

6.2.2        Research Field: The Super Research Policy to Meet Super Challenges

The country faces some super challenges that meeting them needs great or super researches. These super researchers are followed with the following policies:

1.      Creating a framework (template to define great research projects in the country with the following features:

·         Ability of defining big projects to meet current and future super challenges of the country;

·         Ability of dividing big projects into small ones and incorporating and combining their results;

·         Ability of cooperation and participation of different research and academic organizations with industrial enterprises and governmental organization (Triple Helix) to meet the super challenges;

·         Ability of attracting foreign partners in subprojects regarding security considerations;

·         Ability of supply the big projects financially regarding the different mechanisms of attracting investment;

·         Ability of defining dissertations and thesis in subprojects level in universities and higher education centers;

2.      Promoting the research infrastructure of the country and merging, network-making and clustering laboratories and workshops and creating national laboratorial networks;

3.      Generating modern and pioneer knowledge providable in world; resulted from local challenges, local solutions and local experiences.

6.2.3        Technology Field: Big Enterprises Pioneer in Developing Technology and Innovation

Economic problems of the country are mostly explained by referring to the money stock or business atmosphere and the technological retardation is less paid attention to. The technological retardation has to be compensated.

1.      Technology penetration in economy via:

·         Taking encouraging packages of “enterprise R&D” to develop innovation and commercialize;

·         Developing attraction and buying infant innovative companies by big enterprises;

·         Developing the cooperation of big national enterprises (national heroes) with world pioneer companies in R&D with governmental supports and requirements;

2.      Development of financial supply infrastructures of technology and innovation through:

·         Supply the stock o infant knowledge-based and technology-based companies;

·         Venture capital with focus on company venture capital and professional funds;

·         Developing crowdfunding mechanisms;

·         Promoting the setting up state of VC funds, crowdfunding and supporting research and technology

3.      Balance between technology development and utilization development among big governmental companies and big enterprises sub branches of public non-governmental organizations and increasing the role of developmental organizations in manufacturing and developing technology and innovation.

6.2.4        Innovation Field: Facilitating and Organizing the Innovation

In order to turn to an economic capacity, innovation needs facilitation and support. The 12^th government follows the facilitation path with the following approaches:

1.      Facilitating the maturity and growth path of entrepreneurship and innovative companies and phase-to-phase supporting them to turn them to a mature economic enterprise from an infant company;

2.      Increasing the capacity of innovation social acceptance in the country as the main constituent of “Innovation Ecosystem” and making the ground for forming the “Knowledge-Based Society”.

6.2.5        International Cooperations Policies

The 11^th government has emphasized on constructive interaction policy for which international technical and scientific cooperation is a main component. This policy will be continued at the 12^th government in science and technology like other fields.

1.      Developing the international education section  with the priority of the West and South-West of Asia for 1. Training skilled human force in international level and 2. Attracting international students in collegiate and vocational fields.

2.      Taking part in international researches with world pioneer countries with the priority of Europe and Japan and countries that will be among the world top 5 economies in two decades (India, China and Indonesia).

3.      Developing international cooperations in developing technology and innovation with world pioneer companies via joining big R&D projects and attracting the R&D centers of this companies in the country.

4.      Attracting innovative and creative human force in serving the country cycle including immigrants Iranians and capable immigrants to Iran.

6.2.6        Rearranging and Improving the Domination System of Science, Technology and Innovation of the Country

Historical experience of development in Iran shows that the best human forces and the most resources lead to undesirable results when they are owned by inefficient organizational structure. The domination system of science, technology and innovation of the country faces this shortcoming as well and it needs to get rearranged.

1.      Organizing the number of authority organizations and ministries in the field of science, technology and innovation and eliminating conflicts and their mission overlaps.

2.      Segregating missions of the collegiate research and education field from the technology, commercialization and innovation missions at the government level in accordance with the world trends.

3.      Promoting the place and making capacity in setting organization (regulations setting) in professional fields with the priority of ICT, energy and health.

4.      Promoting public private partnership (PPP) in science, technology and innovation.

 

6.3  Science and Technology Plans

Illustrated policies in science and technology will be followed with the following attempts.

6.3.1        Changing the Structure of Science, Technology and Innovation of the country

Changing the structure of science, technology and innovation of the country and efficientizing it needs carrying out the following:

1.      Amendment of the formal structure and segregation of tasks among the presidency vice presidency for science and technology affairs; ministry of science, research and technology; supreme council on science, research and technology, supreme council of cultural revolution; National Elites Foundation, ministry of health and medical education; ministry of industries and business and compiling the related needed law.

2.      Commercialization and innovation concentration in one organization.

3.      Integration in educational system and compiling the related needed law.

4.      Concentration in policy-making of science, technology and innovation in an independent organization.

5.      Compiling the law of setting up organization in technology and innovation fields.

6.      Compiling the law of clearance and revealing information and results of research projects and dissertations and thesis of governmental universities supplied financially by the government’s expenditure freely with security considerations.

6.3.2        Developing the Mechanisms of Financial Supplying of Research and Technology

Efficient, clear and deft financial supply of research and technology activities requires carrying out the following so that a suitable organization for developing this section gets created.

1.      Compiling the laws of crowdfunding, venture capital and supplying the stock of infant and knowledge-based companies.

2.      Redefining the missions of “Innovation and efflorescence fund” as the leader of financial supply system of innovation ecosystem and the organization setting up financial supply of developing technology and private and governmental funds in research and technology.

3.      Changing the government’s approach from direct and monetary supports to indirect and non-monetary.

6.3.3        Innovation Encouraging Package in Big Economic Enterprises

Innovation is costful and needs support which has to be done effectively by the government and get supported by the business. This job needs carrying out the followings:

1.      Compiling the law of tax and tariff encouragements related to innovation and R&D at big enterprises of the country regarding the following criteria:

·         Accepting some part of the R&D cost as the tax cost;

·         Tax exemption based on a percentage of enterprises’ R&D cost up to a certain amount of tax;

·         Using “research and technology soldiers” at enterprises;

·         Using the privilege of governmental purchase;

·         Using tax exemption in the case of buying knowledge-based and infant companies and attracting forces of these companies;

·         Using facilities with preferential price with the condition of taking part in massive research and technology projects of the country.

2.      Running the solution of connecting big enterprises to small knowledge-based companies by the innovation and efflorescence fund so that the big enterprises get to modern and advanced technologies and also creating market for small knowledge-based companies on one hand and turning national achievements in strategic fields such as nuclear technology, defensive technologies and aerospace technologies to knowledge-based companies in order to overflowing national capability in economic and technology market on the other hand.

6.3.4        The Project of Supporting Entrepreneurship Companies

Entrepreneur companies especially in bad business atmospheres, depression conditions, without having access to proper financial supply systems and many other conditions existing in Iran’s economy, need government’s effective but clear support. This support is practicalized through the following:

1.      Supporting companies that are at the beginning of the growth procedure and it is hoped that get turned to a mature company in two years.

2.      Facilitating entrance and exit of innovative and entrepreneur people and reducing the risk caused by failure via defining “entrepreneur companies” based on experiences of countries pioneer in innovation and compiling the related law based on the following criteria:

·         Facilitating founding company with the title of “The entrepreneur company of…” and dissolve it after 2 years automatically with the condition of not turning it to private joint stock or limited liability company;

·         Tax exemption for two years with the condition of less than 1 billion Rials income per year;

·         Compulsion to allocate 25 percent of profit to the company’s asset;

·         Government’s commitment to pay employees’ insurance in the certain level of 3 people for one year with the condition of its continuity in the second year;

·         Turning the company to a private joint stock or limited liability company after 2 years after higher than 1 billion Rials income.

6.3.5        Cooperation with Foreign Pioneer Companies in Innovation Development

Technological cooperations is the necessity of Iran’s economy and society to enable us to reach advanced technologies with a proper pace to upgrading the utilization and manufacturing competitive goods. Economic and social appeals of Iran encourage big companies with technologies to enter such cooperations.

1.      Compulsion of foreign enterprises with big market (more than 300 million dollars per year) in Iran to set up R&D centers in Iran;

2.      Cooperating with foreign companies in innovative projects;

3.      Knowledge-based business’s export along with the knowledge-based goods and services via facilitating buying infant knowledge-based companies’ stock by foreign companies;

4.      Compulsion of big contracts of foreign purchase to implement “technology and innovation appendix”;

5.      Compiling the bylaw of foreign pioneers companies’ cooperation with Iranian universities and enterprises and the encouraging package related to it.

6.3.6         Universities’ International Cooperation

Iran’s scientific growth and existence of millions of collegiate students and graduates in addition to 13 Iranian university being among the world top 1000 universities provide a base to enter international cooperations with renown universities of the world. Practicalization of this goal needs to prescribe and establish suitable organizational conditions. This aim is followed through the following:

1.      Compiling necessary bylaws to define foreign joint courses with foreign pioneer universities, attract collegiate student, student exchange plans, membership in student exchange platforms, joint dissertations and thesis with foreign pioneer universities and using joint laboratories, libraries and research and technological infrastructures.

 

6.3.7        Educational Justice Scholarships

Educational justice needs that not only public education ground gets prepared but also top scientific talents don’t quit scientific progress and education because of financial incapabilities and finding talents is carried out with the aid of providing proper opportunities. This goal is seekable via the following:

1.      Government establishes a fund with the aim of bestowing educational scholarships to unpossessed talented people.

2.      The unpossessed groups are:

·         Economic unpossessed: Being from families of the two unpossessed deciles of the country (Based on the information bank of ministry of cooperative, labor and social welfare);

·         Cultural unpossessed: Being the first collegiate person of a family (Based on the information bank of ministry of science, research and technology)

3.      Talented collegiate student based on educational assessment of students.

 

6.3.8        Massive Research and Technology Projects of the Country

Analyzing and solving some of the biggest challenges of the country that can be solved only with the aid of creating big scientific and technical capacities, need to organize massive research and technology projects of the country. Carrying out this issue is seekable through the followings:

1.      Compiling bylaw of massive research and technology projects of the country based on the world pioneer models regarding the following criteria:

·         Project in accordance with the key challenges of the country and caused by the national foresight program

·         Compulsion to at least 50 percent participation of the non-governmental sector

·         Compulsion to diverse participation of universities, enterprises, non-governmental organizations and NGOs in each project

·         Compulsion to foreign participant with at least 10 percent financial supply (in non security-military projects)

·         Compulsion of member universities in the project to define at least 10 theses and dissertations and taking part in 10 dissertations for each 5 billion Rials

·         Contract in the form of consortium with the commercial enterprises’ leading

 

6.3.9        Developing the Social Capacity of Accepting Innovation in Society

The society also has to have the capacity of encouragement and accepting the innovation. This goal is followed through the following programs. This aim is important because the society must support running policies and modern projects and essential opportunity for social and economic expenditure in generating science and technology gets created.

1.      Informing and public propagation on innovation as the main competitive advantage in global economy;

2.      Increasing risk-taking of utilizing innovations through compiling bylaws of supporting innovative projects and providing research and technology surety.

 

6.4        Necessary Organizations for Running the Science and Technology Program

Running the illustrated programs and policies in the field of science and technology requires corresponding organizations with these programs. 3 organizations of school, university and technologist enterprises with properties explained in the following, are the realization tools of the provided science and technology programs.

     6.4.1 Thought-Processing University

As the main thought-processing, modern-thinking, idea-processor, futurist, question asker, critic and problem-solver organization, the university needs structural changes and the 12^th government have to prepare the following grounds to apply these structural changes.

1.      Independent universities: Increasing universities’ independency through reframing the domination and management structure of universities  with focus on board of trustees and increasing authorities in setting budget, attracting student and faculty and determining and defining disciplines and lessons based on the level of each university can lead to university’s rank promotion in solving real issues of the country and independent and effective human asset development.

2.      Rated universities: Rating and balance between capability and authority level are the perquisites of independency and upgrading responsibility of this organization. Identifying top universities having higher level of capability, as the lead universities, results in authority delegation and achieving the highest level of independency and other universities will have proper relative independency proportional to their capability.

3.      Capable university: Promoting capability through creating big educational, research and technological organizations which on one hand, can have wide activity area and extreme effect and on the other hand, can provide suitable solutions and right decisions is possible. Many small universities that are one weak point of the higher education system of the country can get incorporated and removed based on the parties’ inclination. Moreover, empowerment can get carried out via facilitating clustering and forming clusters from universities or research organizations.

4.      International university: Science, technology and innovation internationalization is realized via the key strategy of “international cooperations” and carrying out attempts such as cooperating with big and pioneer universities of the world, participation in student and faculty exchange platforms and projects, defining joint 2-certificate courses and taking part in research projects and massive international projects and global research organizations and laboratories.

5.      Teaching university: University’s first role for human development and leading scientific and technical development is to upgrade education quality in it. University in which education is not regarded seriously won’t be a research and technologist university as well.

6.      Knowledge propagating university: University’s audiences are not merely elites. The university upgrades its local society’s innovative, technological and knowledge capacities via propagating and publicalizing science language and scientific perception. Therefore, university is an organization with high social participation capacity.

7.      Civilization maker university: No society can make progress unless it relies on possessing developed humans. University is the main organization of training skilled, expert and moralist graduates that provide alternative theories in different fields of human’s life, form diverse life styles and promote the social and political communication level of the whole society. University must prepare these people for acting effective roles and for constructive social participation.

8.      Safe and free university: The science and technology organization needs safety for thinking and freedom for sharing, correcting and improving the modern votes. Making the university security just leads to blocking knowledge growth, lack of  the society developmentalization and overflowing the violence into the society. In this vein, compiling, protecting and implementing the “declaration of collegiate students rights” and “the declaration of professors and researchers rights” will be an essential step.

 

6.4.2        Future-making School

Investing in public education is investing for making the long-term future of the country. Having development-demander, innovation-accepting, lawful, skilled, responsible, participant and religious citizens who live in a moral society is the result of this system. Changing the education system will be followed based on the following massive orientation:

1.      Teacher-orientation: The most crucial policy of the public education is based on teacher-orientation and needs many perquisites such as promoting the teachers’ life state, promoting their social rank as one of the main social-trusted groups and changing the evaluation and assessment structures.

2.      Information literacy development: The tomorrow citizen is a citizen having information and digital literacy. Therefore, it is essential to put ICT development and schools smartization on agenda based on a part of the government’s revenue from setting the regulations of IT services and also expending the public non-governmental organizations tax (with the supreme leader’s agreement). Parallaly, upgrading a proper culture to live in information age will be put on the agenda of the training section.

What distinguishes the desirable situation and the current situation and needs serious changes at the government includes:

1.      Various textbooks: Compiling or choosing multiple textbooks for each grade in a way that the teacher and the school be able to choose the right one based on their strategies and orientations. Hence, parents will be able to choose the right educational content proportional to their child’s talent from different educational contents.

2.      Deconcentration in educational policies: The government delegates some of its authorities to schools; authorities such as choosing educational content, educational strategies, educational tools and using teachers and educational employees. In order to practicalizing this, expanding schools’ board of trustees with presence of representatives of local and urban councils, representatives of NGOs and representatives of industries and enterprises in changing the schools’ dominating structure is set as the priority.

3.      Collegiate student attraction pattern: Altering the current “competitive examination-based” situation to “comprehensive selection” one in which the following features exist:

·         Standard exams: Determining the scientific level held periodic and marks are valid for 2 years.

·         University admission: Universities will admit students based on their rating from applicants (on the condition of having the determined level) based on marks, teachers’ recommendations, scientific and vocational awards and educational history.

1.      Out of school approach development in professional educations and teaching exceptional talents: Talent and intelligence are not general and humans’ various talents need special teachings and trainings. Talented students in art may be incapable in mathematic or vice versa. In this way, segregating smart and exceptional talented students has been a failed policy globally. “Talents diversity rather than talent rating” is the key policy in teaching exceptional talents. Accordingly, schools are responsible for developing general knowledge and also nurturing human traits and educations further than generic knowledge and responding to exceptional talents (including educational acceleration and education enriching) require professional out of school organizations. In this approach, professional organizations are responsible for this section of the educational system in association with the non-governmental participation. Taking part in out of school courses will be based on teachers’ recommendations and the diversity of its providers.

2.      Educational justice: The government is responsible for generic education (rather than professional and out of school one)  and it serves its duty via purchasing educational services (rather than developing private and non-governmental schools). Not granting governmental schools and long-term purchase of educational services from the non-governmental sector instead and based on certain criteria, needs reinforcing monitoring and evaluational capabilities in the governmental sector.

3.      Reinforcing the mechanisms of the Public Private Partnership (PPP): The proper counsel system is accessible through attracting the non-governmental sector’s partnership. Hence, on one hand, developing the private organizations participation and on the other hand, developing partnership of public non-governmental organizations such as municipalities and non-governmental organizations such as universities or charities in the field of general education would be a key policy for the government. Using participatory mechanisms such as construction, utilization and transfer contracts, service-buying or long-term renting contracts facilitate these participations.

4.      Developing setting up organizations: Attracting public private participation and also developing deconcentration needs private setting up organizations in generic education participatorily and independently.

5.      Key knowledge and skills: The outcome of the educational system is a human having information and key skills in life. These skills, however, are not accordant with the needs of the today world right now and need revision. Key skills need to paid attention to in addition to the current capabilities and skills are: 1. Critical thinking which is necessary to live in information age and facing a bunch of information. 2. Creativity and innovation which are the main feature distinguishing organizations and societies. 3. Leniency and diversity admission 4. Entrepreneurship which is necessary for economic development personally and socially. 5. Social communication and team work 6. All-life learning and self-learning which is the perquisite of living in the knowledge-based society.

 

6.4.3        The R&D Organization: Innovative Enterprises

Currently, technology and innovation development is realized not in university but in economic enterprises (especially big economic ones). Development policies and distribution of technology and innovation requires changing the following orientations:

1.      Passing the supply-oriented policy toward the demand-oriented policy;

2.      Passing the government-oriented policy toward the public-private partnership policy;

3.      Passing the university-oriented policy toward the enterprise-oriented policy;

4.      Passing the officer-oriented policy at the government to policy-making policy at the government.

At all policies, paying attention to upgrading the R&D unit is important. The R&D unit includes: 1. R&D sections and centers at economic enterprises, 2. Research centers and technology development and research companies, 3. Technology and innovation development consulting companies and 4. Thought institutes. Encouraging the economic section and enterprises to expend in and enter activities in technology and innovation field is via the following strategies:

1.      R&D encouraging package including tax, insurance and tariff exemptions, relief and discounts in enterprise R&D;

2.      Making active foreign companies in Iran transfer some of their R&D activities to Iran proportional to their market share in the country,

3.      Making the “technology development appendix” precise as the essential component in big contracts,

4.      Facilitating the formation, foundation, growth and dissolving “entrepreneur companies” for a limited time and at limited transaction and activity level to reduce entrance obstacles for innovation and commercialization and reducing economic consequences in the case of inclination to quit.

These policies need to redefine the science, technology and innovation system and focusing in policy-making level in this field at the government.