Four Decades of Scientific Activity in Iran from the Perspective of the Conferences Proceedings, Highly Cited and Hot Papers, and Open Access Papers, in the Light of the Law of Economic, Social, and Cultural Development Plan of Iran

This study aims to investigate Iran scientific production Pre-revolutionary by 2016 with the emphasis on the conferences proceedings, highly cited and hot papers, and open access papers, in the light of the Law of Economic, Social, and Cultural Development Plan of Iran. Descriptive – analytical method used. To achieve research objectives data extracted from Clarivate Analytics (Thomson Reuters) using search strategy CU=IRAN. Analysis is based on conferences proceedings, highly cited and hot papers, and open access papers indexed in Web of Science during 1931- 2016. The findings showed that the conferences papers had a significant growth over time, and in general, before the Islamic Revolution, no conferences papers from Iran were registered in this database, and the growth of these articles was after the victory of the Islamic Revolution, so that from one conference paper in 1989 to 3529 articles in 2015 (and 502 papers for first seven months in 2016). Also, the status of highly cited and hot papers indicates that in general, these papers have been compiled from 1134 highly cited papers since 2006 and 45 are hot papers that have been registered in this database. On the other hand, the status of open access articles suggests that the researchers are more likely to welcome these articles. However, the significant growth of these articles dates back to the fourth decade, with 25813 open access papers, most of which are published in 2015 with 4502 papers. The findings showed that the annual compound growth of conferences papers over the second period of the second development plan was 47.12%, which shows a decrease in the third plan (19.64%) with a negative growth of 8.38%. In the fourth plan, the growth rate of the articles of the conferences is 35.37% and represents 6.6% growth more than third plan. Between the fifth and fourth plans, we experience 18.82% of downtrend. There is no negative growth in the highly cited and hot papers between the second and the fifth plans, but the growth of these papers is not impressive. During the first to fifth plans, the development of open access articles has been significant, but the growth rate of a five-year plan is not prominent to another plan. In this regard, the findings showed that in the fifth development plan, we observed a decrease of 6.59% compared to the fourth plan. Although Iran has achieved a high status in terms of scientific quantity, it is necessary to pay more attention to applied quality research, in accordance with the Law of the Economic, Social, and Cultural Development Plan of Iran, and the responsible bodies and planners must prioritize this issue. With the efforts of the Iranian scholars and the necessary support in this regard, the influential presence of science and technology in the welfare of society is observed.