Iran has wrested the world’s fourth place as far as the contribution of nanotechnology-related scientific articles is concerned.
The number of such articles that have been indexed in the Web of Science (WoS) -- the world's oldest, most widely used and authoritative database of research publications and citations -- used to stand at only eight articles in 2000, that is prior to the establishment of Iran Nanotechnology Innovation Council (INIC).
The number has, however, risen to as many as 11,473 articles for 2022, making the Islamic Republic the fourth biggest contributor of those articles on the global scale.
The figure equals 4.9 percent of the entire nanotechnology articles that have been contributed by international researchers to scientific publications in 2022 and 8.25 percent of the entire number of scientific articles contributed by Iranian researchers to the WoS.
Among the articles, data shows, 32 percent were prepared jointly between Iranian researchers and researchers hailing from other countries, mostly China, the United States, Turkey, Iraq, and Canada.
By the end of 2022, Iranian scientists also registered a total of 312 inventions with patent offices located across the United States and Europe. The figure equals 0.3 patents for every 100 articles and also comprises 31 percent of the entire patents registered with American and European patent centers.