To commemorate Research Week, the Department of Energy (DoE) organized a ceremony on Monday to honor researchers of environmental issues.
December 16th has been designated as National Research Day by Iran’s Cultural Council. The ministry of science, research and technology first marked the fourth week of the Iranian month Azar (starting November 22) as Research Week in 2000. The ministry’s deputy of research was assigned the task of organizing the programs related with the Research Week in collaboration with various research and technology organizations and universities.
To this end, the environment department organized the ceremony to acknowledge the efforts of leading researchers in the environmental sphere, Khabaronline reported. DOE chief and vice president, Masoumeh Ebtekar addressed the event to underscore the importance of research in helping solve global issues such as climate change and global warming.
Referring to research conducted by more than 3000 researchers and scientists from around the world, she said the researchers believe that the Earth’s climate system is unequivocally warming.
Pointing to findings by Iranian researchers indicating “with at least 95% probability that Iran has experienced 1.5 degree centigrade temperature rise over the past decade,” she warned of irreversible global damage if the temperature rises to 2 degrees centigrade.
Noting that the DOE’s goal is clearly defined to “protect the environment,” she underscored the need to study the different aspects of complicated environmental issues before creating new policies to deal with them. Regarding the selection process for researchers, Hamid Rashedi, the head of DOE’s Research and Technological Development Office said “a notice was issued by the ministry of science in September to all provincial departments of the environment for which 22 researchers applied. The applicants’ eligibility was then reviewed by the ministry’s scientific committee. Twenty researchers were shortlisted, two of which were ranked as best researchers by the committee.”
Regarding the best provincial research teams, Rashedi said: “after reviewing the documents from all provincial departments, East Azarbaijan, Kerman, Fars and Tehran provinces were selected respectively as the top provinces in terms of research work.”
