Social, Human Studies Key to Addressing Economic Woes

President Hassan Rouhani underlined the importance of his government's plans for promoting social and human studies to help identify and address the underlying social problems that impede efforts to revive the national economy.

Rouhani lamented that practical applications of Islamic and human sciences have received little national attention.

"Major problems of the society cannot be resolved only through experimental, technical and basic sciences, as experts of human and Islamic sciences shoulder heavy responsibility in this regard," the president was quoted as saying by his official website.

He was addressing a conference titled Eighth Farabi International Award on the Humanities and Islamic Studies in Tehran on Sunday.

Rouhani said findings from research in humanities are indispensable in making national policy and ensuring economic prosperity.

"Who is responsible for addressing economic problems, elaborating on economic conditions of the society, facilitating economic development, helping weather the economic slump and also determining the policies and framework of and the overall approach to the management of society? Human sciences play an instrumental role in this connection," he said.

The Rouhani administration is still grappling with economic problems a year after severe sanctions on major sectors of Iran's economy were lifted under a 2015 nuclear deal that curbed Tehran's nuclear program in return.

His hopes of achieving a sharp jump in the inflow of foreign investment in the absence of the UN, EU and US nuclear sanctions have been dealt a setback by the residual US restrictions. 

These restrictions have deterred overseas financial institutions from using the US dollar to clear their transactions with Iranian partners via Washington's financial system. 

Rouhani's domestic conservative critics argue that his government's mismanagement is also partly to blame for the failure to jumpstart the economy.

His emphasis on the need to promote humanities appears to be a push against his powerful critics who have sought to alter traditional, national curriculums to eliminate or replace the humanities subjects that they believe promote western values.