The Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO) announced that Tunisia, Malaysia, Turkey and Iran were the biggest spenders on Research and Development (R&D) in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), while “Tunisia, Jordan, Turkey and Iran have the highest number of researchers in proportion to their population.” This was announced at the 7th Islamic Conference of Ministers of Higher Education and Scientific Research in Rabat, Morocco.
The OIC countries with the most researchers include Turkey (124,796), Iran (107,810) and Egypt (89,270). R&D expenditure of $6.4 billion makes Iran the OIC’s second largest research spender after Turkey, Mehr News Agency reported.
Turkey and Iran were the most prolific OIC countries in 2012 in terms of publication output, with 24,562 and 23,885 scientific articles respectively. Nearly half of the total OIC articles that year originated from these two countries.
