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.