نشریه رهیافت
پیاپی 51 (تابستان 1391)

Foresight has evolved as a distinct prospective analytical tool: it considers alternative futures for various S&T fields or socio-economic systems by bringing together the perspectives of various stakeholder groups. Thence it assists the decision-making processes at different levels.This article considers different perspectives of foresight evaluation and provides a framework for categorizing impacts of foresight on STI policy making by mapping these perspectives to political functions of foresight. It then reviews the results of several national foresight exercises by this framework.

In recent years, the topic of national macro projects has been emphasized in Iran and different institutions of the country, according to their own approaches, have taken steps to promote the implementation and evaluation of these projects. The process of implementation and evaluation of national macro projects in Iran has been faced with problems, according to experience. So, in order to prevent a repetition of such problems, certain considerations should be applied in the process of implementation and evaluation of these projects. The Commission of Industry, Mining, and Communications of the Supreme Council of Science, Research, and Technology based on its mission as part of the country's science and technology system, has determined the priorities of research and technology activities in the field of the Commission (industry, mining, and communication). It has also defined selection criteria fornational macro projects and selected projects in the fields of industry, mining, and communication in its previous attempts. And so, based on successful global experiences, the Commission offered a model for structuring and organizing the implementation of national macro projects and designed a monitoring system to evaluate the projects. In view of the above, based on three models - the European Union (EU) 7th Framework Programme for Research (FP7), the Eu's Technology Platforms, and the National Science Foundation (NSF) Plan - and also experiences and studies within the country, a model of evaluation and implementation of national macro projects has been extracted. These models are reviewed in this paper and the proposed model will be described.

Human capital as the basis for development is the most important part of any policy governing the training and education of an expert labor force. This is achieved by improvement of human development indicators. Women also play a significant role in the development process. Status Analysis of any country would determine their position in the world or compared with its neighbors. Thus, it is necessary to know how much Iran's development policies have been successful in achieving its development goals and its competitiveness with the other countries in the world. In this article, human and gender development perceptions are discussed first. After that, the education index throughout Islamic countries – with an emphasis on Iran - is examined. Both descriptive and documentary approaches are used in this article. Data from Human Development Reports between 1990- 2007 are also used. Results show that Iran has a low status in human and gender development indices among 19 selected Islamic countries. However, the women's share of enrolment in higher education has increased relatively in Iran but it is lower than that in Kuwait, Qatar, Albania, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and Lebanon. Finally, a pattern for improving the development system in relation to scientific development is suggested.

Discussion of a Comprehensive about Scientific Map of Iran for economic and social development has led to proposal for different plans and numerous indicators have been targeted by decision- makers. Their approaches are generally based on the science and technology (S&T) system. In addition, their indicators taken from infrastructures to inputs and outputs are various, widespread, and without any theoretical relationship. In this paper, three Human Capital indicators and three Technological Activity indicators from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), and six Competitive Industrial Performance (CIP) indicators from the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) were taken to design a national innovation system. These indicators were bound by casual theoretical relationships to evaluate the national development process on the basis of a systemic innovation model. Each indicator represents the final outcome of an extensive set of infrastructural, scientific, and technological activities in those areas and illustrates a country's innovation potential for promoting national development, welfare and social security. Moreover, this study provides an indicator at four levels embracing the interrelationships of science and technology as well as the situations in which they join together.

In recent years, the subject of “Passive Defense”, as one of the Iran`s strategic needs which enhances national security and status in the world, has been attracted the attention of the Supreme Leader and the elite of the country. One of the main tools for addressing this issue is to identify and to do research aimed at the nation`s major goals in this field. Therefore, determining efficient and goal-oriented research mechanisms leads to an increase in the productivity of existing resources. In this context, this paper attempts to provide a process analysis of the passive defense research system of the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology. First, by conducting comparative studies of foreign and domestic cases, the mechanisms of this research system in some key areas have been studied. Then, based on the passive defense literature, primary documents and the results from these comparative studies, the major and core processes of the passive defense research system have been identified. In the next step, based on the model extracted from the comparative studies, the actors and their roles in the research system have been identified. Finally, the activity transposition of actors in each core process has been mapped using Swim lane flowcharts.

Globalization and current strong competition in the world requires a systematic approach towards science, technology and innovation in order, to achieve sustainable growth. Indeed, science, technology and innovation are key factors for reaching a knowledge based economy which is strongly dependent on knowledge, information and high level competencies. Advanced economies are approaching the knowledge based economy model and, during this journey, they pass different steps. Emerging economies are also following this goal, to and achieve sustainable growth through various means the study of countrie's status and history from different aspects, such as infrastructure, efficiency and innovation, will provide a framework for science, technology and innovation policy. For to providing a framework for policy making in this paper, the competitiveness index which is reported annually by the World Economic Forum has been reviewed and, based on this evaluation, different developed and developing countries have been compared from different aspects.