Document Type : علمی - پژوهشی
Author
National Research Institute of science policy. Department of Theory-oriented STI Policy
Abstract
Introduction and Objectives
It has been more than half a century (since 1967 and at the time of forming the Ministry of Science and Higher Education) that Iranian planners of science and higher education have been trying to organize research in a way that plays a more effective role in the process of social and economic development. But it was a goal that was not realized so far.
Research organizing will not necessarily be created by supporting a group of researchers. It requires an institution with two symmetrical tasks: Research, (On the one hand) is carried out within scientific communities and based on interactions and relationships between scientists, and (on the other hand) it requires systematic communication with priority issues (and so government and industrial clients).
Therefore, an autonomous institutional mechanism is required to mediate between research agents (i.e., universities and research institutes) and financial resources (such as government or industry funding). It is the mechanism that internationally has been realized through different structures, including the so-called "research councils". Although it is difficult to categorize the existing international samples (and other similar ones), one can perhaps refer to UKRI, or German Max Planck, and DFG Institute(s) and French CNRS, and so on.
In this article, by theoretical reasoning and historical confirming, it is explained how an incomplete conception of the structure of research councils (and the dominance of that incomplete conception) has caused only one aspect of the duties (i.e. supporting relevant research) to be given important, and the other aspect (i.e., protecting institutional autonomy) to be neglected and how efforts made to organize research have failed as a result of such circumstances.
Method
The results were obtained through documentary research and a theoretical and historical analysis. The scope of the research included the review of all available relevant documents in printed, handwritten, or audio form (as well as the remaining official documents from the institutions in question).
The analysis includes an idiographic approach to the issue of research in Iran. In the idiographic study, based on a fixed valuable idea, (historical) events will be sifted. In the current study, "research organizing" is assumed as a central idea, and so the historical events also are selected by a principle of selection related to the central idea. For example, in the research, establishing the Iranian Ministry of Science, Research and Technology is interpreted as an unsuccessful experience in shaping a research organizing institution, although the actual Ministry may have different successes or failures. Sifting events based on a fixed valuable idea is sometimes known as a "rational reconstruction" of events. A feature of the present approach is to make it possible to evaluate historical events. For example, in the current research, it will be possible to recognize the right or wrong actions (to reach the desired idea), which will provide a possibility for the decision of the "policymakers".
The result will be justified by describing what was extracted from the historical evidence of the Iranian research developers and comparing it with the description of the structure and function of the Research Council in the international literature.
Results
In this article, it is argued that since 54 years ago, there has been a strong motivation among policy-makers, not to realize the full mechanism of a research council as a mediating institution, but to transfer the successes of the international research council (i.e. institutions whose main task was mistakenly thought to be prioritizing and distributing funds for research).
Then, by presenting evidence showing that this incompletely understood mechanism was never realized as a well-functioning institution, it is suggested that the function of the institution in question, i.e., the research council, is realized when (not only) it includes the parts that seemed "obvious", but also the "hidden" parts of the council (i.e., the mediating nature of this institution).
For this purpose, firstly, a brief description and definition of research organizing institutions (i.e., research councils) as well as some new conceptual distinctions are described. In the following, the claim of the article will be documented by examining the most important efforts made during the half-century to establish the Research Council (in the sense described in the theoretical section). These efforts include 1- the first ideas put forth regarding the Research Council in 1967, which led to the establishment of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, 2- the establishment of the Institute for Research and Planning in Science and Education, 3- the establishment of the institutions that branched off from the Institute for Research and Planning in Science and Education, after Islamic Revolution, 4- The formation of the National Scientific Research Council 1974 and its reopening after the Islamic Revolution and its dissolution in 2002), and its continuation in the form of the Supreme Council of Science, research and technology
Discussion and Conclusions
The research shows that the function of all Iranian institutions that were initially established as research councils (if have not been dissolved) has changed. Although the remaining institutions are useful, they have become non-autonomous (and often government-serving) research units. This is in contrast to international research councils, which also play a role in protecting the autonomy of research institutions and scientific communities (and as a result, in impartial research prioritization). Since this issue has received less attention so far, after more than half a century, no mechanism at the level of Iranian research institutions realizes such a function.
It was also argued that in the history of Iranian research organizing institutions (i.e. research councils), the concealment of the second aspect, i.e. the lack of connection to autonomous scientific communities, (and the lack of awareness of its importance) has caused a direct relationship (employer and employee type) between the government and the research organizing council. The result of the direct relationship was that the research priorities made by the councils were always biased towards the government's demands, and, the gap between research and decision has been strengthened. It was also argued that not paying attention to the dual function of a Research Council is one of the reasons that caused any experience in shaping research organizing mechanisms to fulfill only one of these functions, leading to the loss of both functions and the change of its original nature.
Keywords
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