Islamic Republic of Iran believes that the knowledge sharing is the main pillar for Open Sciences and the International Scientific Collaborations

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H. E. Prof. Mansour GHOLAMI, Minister of Science, Research and Technology of the I. R. of Iran giving speech on the UNESCO Virtual Ministerial Dialogue on Covid-19 and Open Science Monday, 30 March 2020 pointed out the following rematks:

  1. Once more, I’d like to thank UNESCO and its partners for setting up such useful virtual Ministerial networks,
  2. As previously indicated, global challenges require global scientific coalitions, beyond geographical or political differences; bringing international communities together in a “Scientific Front” to ensure the people that nobody in the society is left behind and to emphasize that the international crisis like pandemic Covid-19 needs international coalition and solutions, helping decision-makers, saving the nations, and to restore a true “UNITED NATIONS”.
  3. Islamic Republic of Iran believes that the “knowledge sharing” is the main pillar for Open Sciences and the international scientific collaborations.
  4. Iran believes that Science is open and belongs to the whole international society. Our borders are fully open to any international scientific collaborations. We believe that scientific research, publications, software and scientific information should be available to all people in the world, free of any political limitations or obstacles.
  5. Iran has already launched many of these international scientific collaborations like mobility of students and researchers, exchange of lab experiences through university-to-university cooperation and joint research ventures with its Asian, European, African and other international partners. Currently, more than 55 thousand international students from around the world are studying in Iran and approximately the same number of Iranian students are studying abroad. More than 560 joint research projects have been under processing between Iranian and international researchers and scientists,
  6. Just last week, we signed a MOU with one of the European countries to do research on pandemic diseases like Covid-19 and its social, economic and health effects on the society. This 4-year research would be done between 10 Iranian research Institutes and 10 international institutes, from the results of this research, not only Iran, but also other regional and international counties will benefit,
  7. We fully believe that open sciences bring better life for people and suitable circumstance for policy-makers in war against Covid-19. Unfortunately, there are many obstacles against open sciences which should be removed. Inhumanity sanctions imposed by some governments which have even been expanded to the scientific collaborations, are of the most important obstacles for Open Sciences. In Iran we are not just fighting Covid-19, but also we are facing the sanctions threatening lives of thousands civilians,
  8. As the Minister of Science Research and Technology, and member of UNESCO Covid-19 Education Ad-Hoc Ministerial Group, considering Iran’s huge scientific and research potentials and substructures, I announce Iran readiness to share any views and experiences on such international crisis and,
  9.  Last but not least, I suggest the member states to introduce their own “National Scientific Contact Points” to join a “Global Open Access Scientific Coalition” to work together to reach scientific solutions for the international crisis like Covid-19.