Comparing the Performance of Iran's Science and Technology with Southeast Asian Countries1 Using Selected Indicators

Performance of a country's science and technology system plays an important role in its devel-opment in today's world. In Iran especially in recent years, much attention has been paid to the promotion of science and technology system. Since Iran's macro policies and strategies have emphasized the importance of science and technology, the "Supreme Council of Science, Re-search and Technology" gave a mission to the "Commission on Industries, Mines and Commu-nication" as one of the trustees of science and technology in Iran, to assess and compare Iran's status of science and technology with the countries of Southeast Asia, and provide guidelines to improve the status of the country.In this regard, as a first step, the overall state of science and technology of Iran and the countries in the region were investigated and then the results were compared. First, in order to derive ap-propriate indicators on the basis of national and international indicators, the most prestigious national and international indices were studied. Then a survey was conducted in two phases to derive ten indicators (input, output, and process) for the assessment of science and technology. Afterwards the statistics of the countries in the region were examined and compared with those of our country by selected indicators. This paper discusses the results of this study. The next step in the coming year, will be to evaluate and compare Iran's science and technology perfor-mance in specific fields of industry, mining, and communication with other countries in the re-gion.