Scientific interactions between university, industry and government in the field of agriculture in Iran: based on Triple Helix Model

The relationship between university, industry and government in all countries, including Iran, is important and complex and the development of each of these institutions without cooperation is useless. The main purpose of this research was to use triple helix model as an index for evaluating the interactions in order to determine the share of university¡ industry and government as well as investigating the interactions of these three institutions in scientific productions in the field of agriculture reported by Web of Science during 2011-15. An applied descriptive- survey method and content analysis were chosen for this study. The statistical population was all articles published by Iranian researchers in the field of agriculture during 2011-15 and reported by the Web of Science. Results¡ showed that most Iranian scientific productions in the field of agriculture were made by universities and the least was made by the government organization. In addition, results indicated that the most interactions were made between two institutions of university and industry and the least were attributed to industry and government. The T (UIG) index was calculated -4.17 for Iran. It showed that although the cooperation level between the triple institutions in Iran was weak, but had a growing trend during recent years. This index was calculated -9.16 for agriculture during the last 5 years. It suggested that one-fourth of articles jointly published in the field of agriculture by three institutions of university¡ industry and government during past 5 previous years. The finding suggested that the agriculture field in Iran is as one of the first fields in which the most triple interactions were made.