Sustainable Provision of Financial Resources and Accelerating the Country's Strategic Research

Sustainable Provision of Financial Resources and Accelerating the Country's Strategic Research

According to Mehr News Agency, citing the Vice Presidency for Science and Technology of the Presidency, Hossein Afshin, the Vice President for Science, Technology and Knowledge-Based Economy and chairman of the board of trustees of the Iran National Science Foundation, attended this foundation on Saturday, October 24, and was briefed on the performance of the first six months of the year, the support programs, the financial obligations and the implementation process of the National Leap Program.

At this meeting, Mohammadreza Hormozinezhad, the president of the Iran National Science Foundation, presented a report on the progress of programs and the measures taken in the first six months of the year. Statistics on approved research projects, the status of the process of reviewing and approving projects, the process of concluding contracts, the manner of financing research projects and the amount of the foundation's financial obligations toward approved projects were among the axes of this report.

Also, the programs envisaged for the second six months of the year, the foundation's support priorities and the financial obligations ahead were explained. In this section, the budget situation and the necessity of planning for the timely provision of financial resources — with the aim of continuing support for research projects, carrying out the accepted obligations and effectively advancing the foundation's programs — were reviewed.

Afshin went on to provide guidelines for improving the implementation process of programs, upgrading executive processes and following up the foundation's activities more effectively. Coherent planning, attention to executive and financial requirements, and coordination between support programs and available resources were among the axes of attention at this meeting.

Another part of this meeting was devoted to reviewing the implementation process of the National Leap Program. During this visit, Afshin received a report on the measures taken, the mechanisms for following up and monitoring the progress of this program at selected universities, and was briefed on its implementation process.

The National Leap Program, titled "Creating momentum, guiding and accelerating quality scientific outputs of faculty members," has been designed with the aim of promoting scientific authority and the country's international standing, strengthening original research, improving the quality of scientific outputs of faculty members and raising the standing of Iran's top universities at the international level. Increasing Iran's share of the world's science production and expanding international scientific interactions are also among the other goals of this program.

Within this framework, reviewing the measures taken at selected universities, evaluating the program's rate of progress, continuously monitoring the results and supervising its proper implementation are among the requirements for realizing the goals of the Leap Program. The effective implementation of this program can, by strengthening the research capacities of universities and raising the quality and quantity of scientific outputs, help to improve Iran's scientific standing at the international level.

This meeting was held with the aim of evaluating the performance of the Iran National Science Foundation in the first six months of the year, reviewing the financial obligations and the support programs ahead, and following up the implementation process of the National Leap Program — topics that make coordination in providing financial resources, supervision over the implementation of programs and continuous follow-up of obligations necessary along the path to realizing the country's research goals.