Richard Jones discussed Iran’s rapidly growing output of scientific publications over at Soft Machines, and wonders whether this will be sustained “in the light of recent political developments.”
By coincidence we spent a lot of time with members of the Iranian nanotechnology community over the past few weeks, and the answer is probaby yes, it will be sustained.
Iran is neither a small country (our flights to Bombay usually spend a third of the time crossing Iran) nor a poor one, with over 100 universities. It also has a large and well funded nanotechnology program, with a venture capital fund, an incubator and a dozen companies already up and running (and partly subsidised through the nanotech program).
The political situation was of course raised, with the general conclusion that just because the president has a certain view foreign policy it doesn’t necessarily reflect the views of the entire population. This is equally true of the US and the UK as events in Iraq demonstrated.