Scientific wealth and a measure of its geographical dispersion in Iran

The present research deals with the scientific wealth concept, presenting a framework for the measurement and manifestation of its geographical dispersion and studying the dispersion of scientific wealth in Iran. The purpose of the research is to study the cooperation rate of Iran’s provinces in scientific production as well as their use of it. The data employed in this research is the dissertations and journal articles available through IRANDOC databases. The theoretical foundations of scientific production and a literature review concerning it have been studied firstly. Then scientific wealth indices have been studied and categorized. 31 Iran’s provinces have been surveyed based on the main criteria of cooperation rate in scientific production and use rate of the produced items. Eventually, provinces have been ranked based on their cooperation rate in scientific production of the country using five different indices and the rich, medium, and poor provinces designated. Results indicate that some 70% of country’s scientific wealth belongs to only 20 provinces. Results also indicate that Tehran has a very large proportion of country’s scientific wealth considering all criteria. Results, while presenting an illustration of the geographic dispersion of country’s scientific wealth, can help to plan a balanced development for the whole areas of the county.