kiarash fartash

National laboratories (labs) are pivotal institutions in the advancement of science and technology (S&T), by consolidating national research capacities and leading large-scale S&T projects to respond to national demands or push the frontiers of science. However, existing experiences of S&T labs in Iran have remained mostly service-oriented and dependent on government funding for their daily operations. This study aims to propose a framework for founding and managing national S&T labs in Iran. To this end, we reviewed the characteristics of national labs from Iranian and international experiences. By adopting a qualitative approach and conducting 14 semi-structured interviews, as well as convening a focus group, we propose a framework of features and principles for the foundation and operation of national S&T labs in the Iranian context. According to our findings, significant challenges affecting the performance of national labs include dependence on government budgets, centralized management, and limitations in utilizing external human resources. To address these limitations, our proposed framework entails five principles, i.e., (a) board of trustees governance with operational independence, (b) limited core staff complemented by an extended network of external researchers, (c) a diversified financial portfolio and project selection approach that integrates top-down strategic directions with bottom-up proposals, across frontier, applied research, and demand-driven projects, supporting infrastructure upgrade on project-basis, (d) an independent legal entity established under a management contract with a host institution, and lastly, (e) expansion of stakeholders participation and the scope of lab services. This framework provides implications towards ensuring the efficiency, continuation, and impact of national labs in S&T development in Iran.

The present study aims to develop a conceptual framework and analyze policy measures that support the market-shaping of nanotechnology in Iran. The temporal scope of the research spans from the early 2000s to 2023, while the thematic focus is on identifying and evaluating the policies that influence the market shaping of nanotechnology in Iran, as well as the key actors and factors involved. This research adopts a qualitative, descriptive approach with an applied orientation. Based on the findings, 12 policy tools have been identified as mechanisms for supporting nanotechnology market development in Iran. Despite a relatively long history of nanotechnology development and sustained policy efforts, the assessment of these market-shaping tools reveals that—except for the promotion of benefits and applications—the effectiveness of most tools ranges from moderate to low. This highlights the need for policymakers to place greater emphasis on market-shaping strategies, not only in the field of nanotechnology but also for emerging and disruptive technologies more broadly in Iran.

Science and Technology Parks (STPs)—as key innovation intermediaries in Iran’s innovation ecosystem—play a pivotal role in technology transfer and commercialization, strengthening university–industry linkages, and advancing the knowledge-based economy. Nevertheless, their development and performance are constrained by multiple challenges that undermine efficiency and impact. Adopting a qualitative, applied research design and drawing on the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework, this study identifies and examines the main institutional challenges facing STPs in Iran. It then organizes these challenges into four distinct institutional categories and, for each category, proposes a set of institutional interventions and policy levers structured across three decision-making levels: operational, collective-choice, and constitutional. Data were gathered from both secondary and primary sources, comprising in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 22 experts. Using qualitative content analysis with a three-stage coding procedure supported by MAXQDA, the study provides a comprehensive portrayal of the current landscape. The research was conducted in the first half of 2025 and covered all STPs nationwide. The findings point to an overarching “institutional deficit” arising from a misalignment between formal rules and contextual realities, manifesting along four interdependent dimensions: (i) governance—mission ambiguity and multi-principal fragmentation; (ii) execution and infrastructure—absence of operational rules and standardized, professional service bundles; (iii) human capital and institutional learning—limited facilitation competencies and weak institutionalized learning; and (iv) networks and demand alignment—low technology demand-pull and misaligned stakeholder incentives. Accordingly, the paper recommends redesigning a context-appropriate policy mix of interventions implemented concurrently across the three IAD levels. The results offer actionable guidance for decision-makers, STP managers, and private-sector actors seeking to improve the governance and performance of Science and Technology Parks

In recent years, the development and proliferation of knowledge-based firms (KBFs) have become one of the key pillars of economic and technological growth. In this regard, the influence of policies in accelerating the progress of these firms is of great importance. However, the process of formulating and implementing these policies is rather complicated and requires continuous adaptation to environmental and technological changes. The gradual changes in the assessment procedure for granting support to KBFs in Iran is an important overlooked issue. To this end, this paper examines the evolution of assessment criteria of KBFs through the lens of policy learning, notably technical and conceptual policy learning. Those in charge of implementing the law for supporting KBFs gradually learned and revised eligibility criteria for being certified as KBF to further develop and contribute to the growth of these firms. This article investigates the policy learning yielded for stakeholders in the policy process of the law by highlighting the evolution of evaluation and support criteria for KBFs. This paper, in terms of purpose and type, is applied and qualitative, respectively, and its thematic and temporal scope covers the assessment criteria of KBFs from 2012 to 2023. Given our findings, technical and conceptual types of policy learning have played an instrumental role in revising supportive tools and criteria for becoming an approved KBF to enjoy the law facilities.

Today, many advanced technologies are monopolized by multinational corporations. Nevertheless, some countries have successfully leveraged foreign direct investment (FDI) to enhance their technological capabilities. This study aims to examine China’s policies in utilizing FDI for the development of its technological capacity. The research adopts a historical case study approach, drawing data from various sources including academic articles and reports from international databases such as the World Bank, Google Scholar, and Scopus. The study analyzes China’s political and economic transformations across four key time periods: the pre-reform era (before 1979), the initial reform period (1979–1991), the era of major transformation (1992–2001), and the period of accession to the World Trade Organization (2001–2008). The findings indicate that China’s FDI policy evolved through multiple stages. Initially, China embraced open-door policies and attracted foreign investment in labor-intensive assembly industries to build foundational technological infrastructure. In subsequent phases, China imposed conditions on foreign companies to facilitate the transfer of advanced technologies, particularly in sectors such as electronics and information technology. One of China’s major successes in this context was the establishment and expansion of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and technology clusters, which served as critical instruments for attracting investment and fostering innovation.

The adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) has emerged as a critical strategy for achieving a socio-technical transition toward sustainable transportation. In light of this, many countries are actively working to identify challenges associated with this transition and to develop and implement effective policies to address them. This research presents a theoretical framework that outlines the factors influencing the socio-technical transition within the electric vehicle sector, drawing from existing literature and employing a multi-level perspective approach (MLP). Through this framework and insights from expert focus groups and thematic analysis, the researchers identified several challenges facing the socio-technical transition of electric vehicles in Iran. These challenges were categorized into three main areas: supply/production challenges, demand/application challenges, and overarching challenges. Further analysis using the multi-level perspective approach allowed for these challenges to be organized into landscape, socio-technical regime, and niche levels. Tailored policy solutions were proposed for each category of challenge. At the landscape level, economic and environmental/security challenges were highlighted, leading to recommendations such as aligning fossil fuel prices and expanding renewable energy power plants. At the socio-technical regime level, issues related to infrastructure, business environment, culture, economy, legal matters, and regulation were identified. Suggested policy tools included enhancing maintenance infrastructure, increasing the number of charging stations, improving the supply chain for EV components, offering tax incentives to manufacturers, raising public awareness about the benefits of electric vehicles, reducing EV prices, and enacting relevant legislation. Lastly, technological challenges were recognized at the niche level, with proposed solutions including incentive programs to foster technology development and developing green technology batteries.

The optimal utilization of conscripts in the armed forces is a significant concern, as inefficiencies and underutilization of skills have led to dissatisfaction among young individuals and their families. This issue can disrupt education and result in psychological distress. The concept of "innovation encampment" is introduced as a solution to direct specialized conscripts toward technological and research initiatives in defense. This study aims to outline this concept and promote its development to tackle military service and national security challenges. To fulfill the research objectives, systematic studies and content analysis were employed, utilizing a mixed-methods approach. The systematic review comprised an examination of available resources within scientific databases and the extraction of a theoretical framework to design an interview protocol. Additionally, directional coding of field findings from semi-structured interviews continued until theoretical saturation was achieved. The research findings delineate three policy dimensions related to the innovation encampment, along with operational examples, culminating in a conceptual model for establishing an innovation camp based on an innovation ecosystem. Furthermore, a model detailing the processes of a defense innovation center is presented. Ultimately, the outcomes of the discourse, along with insights from relevant managers and policymakers, have been synthesized into lessons learned and corresponding recommendations.

In recent years, emerging technologies have been prioritized by countries around the world. Nanotechnology is one of the emerging technologies that has been considered an interdisci- plinary and critical area in many firms and organizations. The governance of nanotechnology development faces various challenges and issues that are associated with its expected social and economic benefits. In developing countries, for better management of technology devel- opment, there is a need for a tentative type of governance that can be utilized to make ap- propriate policy and business decisions. Accordingly, the purpose of this research is to analyze the governance of nanotechnology development through a tentative approach. The spatial scope of this research is Iran, and its temporal scope of the research is from May 2023 to June 2024, which entails the period from the early 2000s till 2024. This research was conducted in two stages. In the first stage, a framework consisting of factors related to tentative governance is identified by the literature review. In this stage, factors such as pragmatism and flexibility, learning and adaptability, stakeholder participation, resource provision and allocation, and goal setting were identified as indicators of the tentative approach. Then, we identified instances of tentative governance factors for emerging technologies. In the second stage of this research, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 16 nanotechnology policymakers and experts at the business and policy levels to examine the status of nanotechnology development gov- ernance, which served as the basis for extracting and narrating our findings. According to the findings of this study, nanotechnology development governance in Iran has yielded significant achievements in research and technology development by adopting a tentative approach through adopting flexibility, stakeholder participation, and taking into account environmental challenges. However, to achieve long-term goals, especially economic benefits from nanotech- nology, it is of great importance to improve institutional coordination, enhance research infra- structure, and enforce regulations in favor of nanotechnology market development.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the key technologies of the current era which plays a significant role in the advancement of countries. The development of this technology calls for appropriate infrastructure, which contributes to its effective application across various sectors. Despite the advancements in developed countries, developing nations face multiple challenges such as limited access to the Internet, shortage of experts, and bureaucratic hurdles. To fill this gap, this paper aims to provide a framework for the different levels of AI development infrastructure in Iran, designed in two phases. In the first phase, a preliminary framework for infrastructure was developed by reviewing international studies and experiences. In the second phase, semi-structured interviews with domestic experts were conducted, and their content was analyzed to propose a final infrastructure framework tailored to the conditions of Iran. This framework comprises six main infrastructural levels including High-speed data networks and exchange, Computational infrastructure, Data storage infrastructure, Core models and algorithms, Software and frameworks, and Applications, at two levels of AI service provider and aggregator operators. Considering the peculiarities of developing countries, particularly Iran, proper development of AI infrastructure seems unlikely unless government intervenes in favor of the establishment of AI service providers and service aggregators operators. Our findings provide insights and implications at the policy and management level for both policymakers and managers of the ICT sector, and particularly artificial intelligence.

In recent years, the occurrence of unexpected events such as climate change, environmental destruction, and health pandemics, in addition to creating social, economic, and political disturbances, highlights the strengthening of the infrastructure to deal with such crises. As one of the recent global pandemics, COVID-19 revealed the weaknesses of health systems, especially in providing medical equipment for prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. In response to this challenge, many countries including Iran, tried to enhance their capabilities in medical equipment by adopting policies proportionate to the conditions of the COVID-19 period. Given the abovementioned, this paper intends to review and analyze policies aimed at supporting the development of medical equipment during COVID-19 in Iran. We first reviewed the literature and international experiences to propose a preliminary conceptual policy framework for supporting medical equipment, which seven experts confirmed as suitable for the specificities of the Iranian context. By conducting 13 semi-structured interviews, we collected primary data and analyzed them by content analysis. Our findings elaborate on three categories, including 1) financial and tax policies; 2) accelerating the process related to regulations, trials, and approvals; and 3) business, production, and networking incentives that influenced the development of medical equipment during COVID-19. Adopted policies in Iran led to the rapid development and production of advanced equipment, such as ventilators and pulse oximeters, by accelerating the existing processes and providing new supports that would not have been offered under normal circumstances. Our findings entail policy implications on supporting the development of medical equipment in the post-COVID-19 era.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is driving profound changes in human life, significantly impacting areas such as employment, the economy, communication, warfare, privacy, security, ethics, and healthcare. Despite its current influence, the future evolution and impact of AI remain uncertain. Depicting future scenarios of emerging technologies is a common method for understanding and shaping desired outcomes, as well as preparing for potential future situations. These scenarios can be proposed by various sources, including media and science fiction. Science fiction films, in particular, have a long history of portraying the future of emerging technologies, especially AI. This paper aims to explore future scenarios of AI development.

To conduct this research, first, we reviewed the literature and reports related to the future of AI, which led to the identification of drivers shaping the future. Then, By gathering experts' opinions and conducting a content analysis of science-fiction films with an IMDb score higher than six, relevant to the future of AI, we identified three uncertainties underlying the future of AI. Following our content analysis protocol, we analyzed films and identified evidence of drivers in each film. Eventually, from the intersection of our uncertainties, nine scenarios were obtained, of which four scenarios were logically acceptable.

We found that uncertainties shaping the future of AI are social acceptance, singularity, and legality and regulation, with expert average scores of 4.40, 4.33, and 4.78, respectively. We selected them from the six drivers identified in the literature review, i.e., social acceptance, scope of AI development, singularity, cost-benefit of AI, legality and regulation, and government support. The scenario of AI dominating the world is a dystopian narrative of the future of human beings, where AI takes over power and pushes humans to the outskirts of the cities. In contrast to this scenario, in the utopia scenario, the synergy of humans and AI creates a utopia where humans and AI co-exist and thrive peacefully. The remaining scenarios’ features are located between dystopia and utopia.

Our findings indicate that ‘Utopia: Human and AI Synergy’ is the most optimistic scenario, while ‘AI Domination of the World’ represents the most pessimistic outlook for AI development. The results show that the advantages of AI development are significant for both governments and individuals, necessitating proportionate policies to realize these benefits. However, the potential risks and challenges of AI in the future highlight the need for regulations and restrictions to prevent uncontrolled development and applications of AI.

In addition to education and research, universities and research institutions are also responsible for other functions such as research, entrepreneurship, socialization and participation in the development of their surrounding environment, which is also known as the third mission. In this regard, the aim of this article is to analyze the functions of research and the third mission in Iranian universities and research institutions, identify challenges and provide policy solutions to solve these challenges. The current research is qualitative and descriptive in terms of type and purpose, and its orientation is applied-developmental. The required secondary data is extracted from documents, reports, books and research background. Primary data was also collected through 20 semi-structured interviews between March and June 2023. Based on the findings of this article, in total, the challenges identified in the 4 functions of conducting basic research and at the edge of knowledge, conducting demand-oriented research for industry, society and government, entrepreneurship and commercialization of research and technological achievements and paying attention to national needs and regional and sustainable extraction and then corresponding to each challenge, policies were proposed to promote these functions. The findings of this research have practical and policy implications and suggestions for science and technology policy makers and university managers.

Knowledge exchange between university and industry is considered a vital phenomenon to promote innovation in industries. despite the apparent benefits for the industry and the university, its success cannot be guaranteed, and many university-industry collaborations face various challenges. In other words, it can be stated that the formation of this relationship over time is not fundamentally based and its direction is not purposeful. Despite the studies conducted in the field of industry-university relationships, more needs to be addressed explicitly to the challenges of the university side in the relationship between industry and university. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to present the framework of the university's challenges in the relationship between the university and the industry. This research is applied type, its strategy is a qualitative study, and in terms of its objective, it is descriptive. The data required to achieve the research goal has been obtained using primary and secondary data from December 2021 to April 2022. By using secondary data, the dimensions of the challenges of the university side in the relationship between the industry and the university in 5 categories, including 1) policy-making and governance; 2) administrative and executive; 3) intermediary institutions; 4) intellectual and financial ownership; 5) cultural identification and as a conceptual framework for identifying challenges in this research. Then, 25 experts from universities, research institutes, and political institutions who are familiar with industry-university relationship issues were interviewed to identify examples of challenges. Finally, through the analysis of the content of the conducted interviews, 22 challenges corresponding to each of the dimensions were identified.

Nowadays, Governance in science and technology has become more serious for policymakers and governors. One of the most important reasons for this matter would be for the investigation of the main players’ roles and their operations in science and technology. The importance of reviewing Science and Technology Parks (STPs) - as a key player in science and technology governance and also a government policy tool for science and technology development- has got less attention of policy makers, despite its main role in science and technology. In this regard, this paper aims to investigate on the governance of innovation and technology in science and technology parks of Iran. In this regard, STPs main functions are extracted from the literature and related regulations and government supports which are related to STPs functions are highlighted. Eventually, a discussion about the effectiveness of mentioned supports and regulations for implementation of the STPs functions’ in Iran has been presented.

Despite the high importance of public procurement for innovation (PPI) in developed countries, this policy tool has received less attention from policymakers and researchers in Iran. The significance of public procurement policies has made it one of the industrial development policies in some countries. On the other hand, the critical role of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and knowledge-based companies in technology development and national economic development has been emphasized in many developing countries, including Iran. In this regard, the purpose of this article is to review the public procurement process with an emphasis on PPI and support domestic SMEs. To this end, related laws and policies to support public procurement in the country and several countries with comparable conditions to Iran (Brazil, Turkey, South Korea, and India) have been reviewed. Based on the findings, consideration has been adjusted to policies to support the supply of innovation in the country's public procurement to an acceptable level. However, there are various challenges and issues in its implementation. Nevertheless, what is seen in the country's public procurement system, especially in the PPI, is the weakness in implementing and enforcement of policies to stimulate the demand side of innovation. Therefore, ten policy suggestions and solutions resulting from policy analysis and interviews with domestic stakeholders, as well as an international comparative study, have been provided. These are all for further support and create a role for SMEs and domestic knowledge-based companies in public procurement and foster technology development and innovation of these companies through public procurement.

Monitoring and evaluation, by providing feedback on the outputs, outcomes, and impacts of policies, not only contribute to understanding of the factors responsible for the success or failure of policies, but also play a crucial role in enhancing learning within the policy process. Given the challenges pertinent to monitoring and evaluating science and technology (S&T) objectives in Iran—and consequently, the difficulties in monitoring the objectives stipulated in national policies, particularly development plans— this research aims to explore and analyze the performance objectives of science and technology in the Seventh Development Plan and to propose policy recommendations to overcome them. Following review of the literature on challenges of S&T monitoring, given the context of Iran, and semi-structured interviews with three experts, a conceptual framework of S&T monitoring challenges was developed. Then, a panel of 12 experts from relevant institutions, including the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology, Statistical Center of Iran, Ministry of Health and Medical Education, National Research Institute for Science Policy, and the Vice-Presidency for Science and Technology was convened to gather insights regarding the challenges and imperatives for monitoring S&T objectives of the seventh development plan. Findings of this research reflect that the main barrier to S&T objectives monitoring include idealistic goal-setting, insufficient pragmatic consideration of existing conditions and capabilities, not properly engaging experts in drafting S&T policies and their objectives, lack of standard definitions for S&T indicators, lack of attention to innovation-related indicators, and inadequate resource allocation. Effective resolve to aforementioned challenges includes the development of a national S&T monitoring and evaluation manual, setting STI targets by benefiting from experts' engagement, and measurability considerations throughout the policy and goal setting stage. Furthermore, lack of a S&T data governance system and the difficulty of collecting data through surveys are key shortcomings in data collection dimension. These challenges can be addressed by reinforcing data governance, establishing a statistics and registry-based information system, and enhancing the legal enforceability of data collection and publication among agencies responsible for S&T statistics. Lastly, lack of a national division of labor among institutions responsible for S&T monitoring and evaluation, and the absence of legal mechanisms to enforce data provision, are major institutional challenges. Our recommendations to overcome institutional challenges entail enhancing financial, human, and infrastructural resources allocated to stakeholder organizations in the monitoring of S&T objectives.

Supporting innovation in firms is one of the critical policy issues in technology and innovation policy. In this regard, "innovation agencies" - generally public institutions - are founded in different countries to design and implement technology and innovation policy tools. Hence, the purpose of this research is to present a framework and investigate the functions of the Iran Vice-Presidency for Science, Technology, and Knowledge-based Economy (VPST) as the national innovation agency. The temporal boundary of our paper includes 2016 to 2022 and the spatial boundary is the activities and actions of VPST. We collected data through 21 semi-structured interviews, documents, and policy reports, then we analyzed data by content analysis. Based on our findings, the 8 main functions of innovation agencies, as well as VPST include supporting research and technology development; supporting networking and infrastructure formation and maturity of innovation ecosystem; supporting commercialization and shaping market for technology and innovation; empowering technological, knowledge-based firms and startups; strengthening technology and innovation diplomacy and international circulation of experts; supporting exports and strengthening export capabilities; financing technology and innovation; and lastly technology and innovation policy intelligence. Considering the institutional gaps and context of Iran, VPST has played a more significant role in functions such as regulation and financing, including IPO, compared to other international innovation agencies. While in some functions, such as technological cooperation and foreign investment, VPST is less engaged compared to its international counterparts. The results of this research contain recommendations for policymakers as well as future research.

The Ministry of Science, Research and Technology and its subordinate actors, as one of the crucial sub-systems in the national innovation system, play a vital role in the structure, functions, and performance of the national innovation system. In this regard, the current research was conducted with the aim of identifying and prioritizing the functions and sub-functions of the Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology in the national innovation system. In terms of methodology, this research is mixed research that has benefited from thematic analysis in the qualitative part and importance-performance analysis in the quantitative part. In the qualitative part, the review of international documents, laws and regulations, and upstream documents and the analysis of data related to focus groups with different stakeholders led to the preparation of a list of 60 sub-functions under the 7 main functions of the Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology. Then, to achieve the priority sub-functions of the Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology, the importance-performance questionnaire was sent to universities, research institutes, and science and technology parks, and 33 completed questionnaires were collected. Based on the importance-performance analysis, 40 sub-functions were selected as priority sub-functions (low performance and high importance) of the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology. Identifying the priority sub-functions of the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology can be a basis for a more accurate functional and performance analysis and formulation of policies and programs in order to strengthen the role of this Ministry in the national innovation system.

According to the evidence, there are unbalanced distributions in different geographical areas in terms of level and type of innovative behavior. Regional innovation system, as one of the theories in this field, considers innovation as a process resulting from various factors inside and outside companies. Researchers and government agencies have provided many models for monitoring their regional innovation systems, taking into account the specific characteristics of each region. In this research, by a comprehensive overview of the regional innovation model, has been tried to provide a model based on the context and conditions of the regions in Iran for monitoring of regional innovation systems. In the first stage, after reviewing the literature, interviewing the experts and then thematic analyzing the content of the obtained data, initial Dimensions and indicators were identified Then, a Fuzzy Delphi technique and a seven-scale questionnaire were used to test the results and expert opinion. Finally, after the extraction and correction of the indicators to evaluate the regional innovation systems, a comprehensive model was identified in 5 dimensions, 20 indicators and 180 sub-indicators. The proposed regional innovation system assessment model consists of firms' behavior and regional interactions, economy, Human Capital, Innovative outputs, Locational Features, that each dimension has its own indicators and sub-indicators, each one is discussed in the paper. Finally, the regional innovation system of Yazd province as a special science and technology region was evaluated using this model. The evaluation results showed that the Locational Features and firms' behavior and regional interactions are in a better position than other dimensions, although the progress rate of all dimensions is less than 50%. Also, according to these results, the dimensions of innovative outputs and economy have the least amount of progress.

A given technology goes through a unique path in the process of its diffusion. Factors residing in a socio-technical environment either inhibit or strengthen the path and speed of technology diffusion. In this regard, the aim of this research analyzes the diffusion curve of unstructured supplementary service data (USSD) technology in Iran. The scope of this paper includes mobile phone subscribers who have adopted USSD technology from 2010 to 2019. By adopting Roger’s technology diffusion framework, this article depicts and analyzes the diffusion curves of different applications of USSD technology through the historical data of USSD technology subscribers in the Hamrahe Avval operator in Iran. To better understand and explain the diffusion and the influential factors in the diffusion in the context of Iran, 14 semi-structured interviews were conducted with USSD experts affiliated to the regulatory bodies, policymakers, and mobile phone operators. Our findings reveal that USSD was mostly used in the operator and banking services while its adoption in other survives was been limited. We also found that relative advantage, complexity and Trialability have the highest strengthening effect on the diffusion of USSD; in the same vein price, regulations, and the interaction of actors are the key barriers to the diffusion of USSD in Iran. The findings of this paper provide policy and management implications for regulation and business activities of financial technologies and in particular USSD. To this end, the significant influence of regulation needs to be taken into account which could be a barrier to financial technologies diffusion as the case of USSD in Iran indicates.

"Region" is a concept that plays an important role in the policy-making of the governments of the world. With the changes that have taken place and new technologies, a new type of region is needed today. Regions, as a combination of criteria and elements, can create and continuously improve knowledge enterprises by injecting new ideas, knowledge and organizational learning. Regions must incorporate the principles of knowledge creation and continuous learning to eventually become learning regions. According to the special characteristics of each region of Iran; Innovation has a different effect in each of these areas. To determine the extent of the impact of these systems, it is necessary to evaluate their performance. The authors of this study intend to provide a model for evaluation in accordance with the conditions of the regions in Iran. The proposed regional innovation system evaluation model consists of three levels, each of which evaluates regions from different perspectives. In such a way that the indicators presented in each level are complementary to other levels. First, the general indicators and potentials of each region are identified, and at the third level, the performance of the firm and the system is evaluated and monitored. Finally, using a case study of Isfahan region; Intends to experimentally evaluate the performance of a regional innovation system in Iran.

In this paper, we investigate the implementation experience, performance, and challenges of open innovation tools under the law for supporting New Technology-Based Firms (NTBFs) from 2012 to 2022. This law is the most important national initiative for supporting innovative and technologically capable firms entailing more than 110 tools – of which 10 tools are dedicated to supporting open innovation and we focus on them in this paper. By adopting a qualitative research method and we conducted a content analysis of data gathered from semi-structured interviews, reports, and documents pertinent to open innovation (inbound, outbound, and coupled) tools. Our findings reveal that events and networks and meeting the technological needs of large companies are the two tools with higher influence on performance in match-making and the exchange of ideas and knowledge among NTBFs. Compared to international experiences, the creation and diffusion of knowledge and joint research are less supported tools in Iran. Assessing open innovation tools, policy-level open innovation coordination, and encouraging large public firms toward engaging in open innovation, are the key practical and theoretical implications of this paper.

The institution of the university in a community is the driving force behind the students' behavioral ethics and the spread of elitism and sophistication among them. The university can prove its work by nurturing a skilled and capable force. Of course, with the review of the process of higher education this is not very satisfactory. Therefore, in order to optimize the performance of higher education in the process of scientific / cultural development and nurture the creative and creative value of the Center for Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship of Imam Sadegh University, to support this important goal is to support efforts to identify problems and provide innovative solutions. Entrepreneurial and problem solving, it strived to provide the best conditions, facilities and opportunities for the transfer of global knowledge to our country's youth to protect the elites and ideas of Iranian youth. Therefore, with the establishment of a student government based on an educational model (work and experience) designed to empower participants in this project, utilizing the capacity of the university institution and devoid of the usual political categories. The steps of this plan are outlined in this article, using the action research method.

Covid_19 pandemic is the most important issue that the world is facing with which directly effects human and even animal health. In addition to its irreparable effects on human health, this disease has had many economic social and environmental effects on the world and has alleviate the quality of human life. This essay proposes five main solutions for the world after Covid_19. Authors first recommend economic redistribution by advising to avoid a development model concentrated on cumulative economic growth then the importance of regenerative agriculture, protection of environment, reduction of consumption as well as unnecessary travel and forgiveness of debts at the international level as the key solutions for the world post covid-19 to deal with current risks. After reviewing each solution, we suggestions for further research are presented.