Azerbaijan, Baku, Feb.18 / Trend F.Mehdi/
Science production in Iran is growing at a fast pace, as in the last 7 years, it has grown up by seven times, IRNA quoted President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as saying.
In the Iranian year 1384 (ended in March 2006), Iran had a share of 0.3 percent in science production in the world, he said, adding that the figure is currently around 3 percent, showing a seven-time growth.
The Islamic Republic of Iran has ranked 17th in terms of science production in 2012, according to the latest statistics which were released by the Scopus database.
According to the statistics, Iran produced 34,155 articles in 2012, which gained the country the world's 17th rank in science production and fixed its top position in the region, above Turkey.
Abolfazl Rezaei, the head of the Iranian Health Ministry's Center for Information Development and Coordination and Scientific Publications, said Switzerland and Turkey stood after Iran at the 18th and 19th ranks with the production of 33,118 and 30,296 articles in 2012 respectively.
Rezaei added that Iran's scientific progress over the past few years was the result of the country's recent policies and programs to develop knowledge and facilitate researchers' access to the world's top academic resources.
According to the statistics published in the journal Nature, Iran ranked first in scientific growth in the world in 2011.
In 2000, the Islamic Republic ranked 53rd in the world in terms of highly cited medical articles, but improved to the 23rd rank in 2011.
According to the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), Iranian researchers and scientists published a total of 60,979 scientific articles in major international journals from 1999 to 2008.
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