The status of technology development in Iran with a look at the condition of mechanical engineering

Today, technology development is not only a straight forward approach to create wealth, but is a means for superiority of countries in military, industry and economy. In this paper, as a part of a project entitled: Future studies of mechanical engineering, the status of technology development in engineering field, and specifically in mechanical engineering, has been investigated in Iran and compared with some other countries. The aim of this study is to provide a realistic picture of technology development in Iran including its strengths and weaknesses. In data collection for technology development in engineering field, the specific statistics related to mechanical engineering has also been noticed. Some major indices to assess the status of technology development in a country include the number of granted patents, the expenditure on research and development, and the number of researchers (scientists and engineers). Although the number of registered patents is not necessarily enough for a country to be considered as a technology developer, but the lack of enough patents in a country is definitely a sign of poor condition in technology. A brief look at the statistics shows that the global share of Iran in patent registration is very low. In this paper, challenges related to technology development in Iran has been analyzed and the its strengths and weaknesses have been mentioned. This paper has merely shown the current status of Iran and has compared it with other countries. The roadmap of future and suggestions for current challenges will be provided in later researches.