Flow of Scientific Publications in Iran during 2007 to 2011, Based on Triple Helix of University, Industry and Government

Abstract

The aim of this study is to investigate the flow of scientific production in Iran during 2007 to 2011. The triple helix model was used to assess the relationship between universities, industries and the government on scientific production process. Iranian scientific products in the three ISI citation databases of Science Citation Index (SCI), Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) and Art and Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI) during the abovementioned period was collected as the research population and the authors addresses were reviewed carefully to be used in TH model. ISI.exe and SPSS software were used for this purpose. The Triple Helix collaboration of University, Industry and Government was measured by mutual information (transmission T) derived from the Shannon’s formulas. The T-value here represented the uncertainty when the probability distributions were combined. Findings indicated that the number of papers written by Iranian authors increased steadily from 8796 in 2007 to 19876 in 2011. Among the three sectors, university researchers had the most participation Researchers from the industry sector had the lowest participation. Two-dimensional and three-dimensional collaborations were calculated too. The results showed that University-Government collaboration was much higher than the University-Industry or Industry-Government collaborations indicating that the gap between Industry and the two other sectors in Iran was significantly big. Government–University interactions had a better condition. This can be explained due to the supports that research organizations receive from the government. Unfortunately the T value is not high for the three dimensional collaboration of University, Industry and Government researchers. But by adding the foreign collaboration as the forth factor into the study, the results change a little and the collaborations between different sectors and foreign researchers increase in comparison with internal collaborations. It is clear that an ideal point in relations to different sectors of Triple Helix of university, industry and government is not possible overnight but requires a long- term strategic planning