Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Correspondence
  • Published:

Consider the home research environments of international students

Nature Human Behaviour volume 7, pages 660–661 (2023)Cite this article

Subjects

The population of Iran is more than 85 million, 60% of whom are below the age of 30 — including 3 million students (60% female and 40% male) who seek higher education. Academic researchers in Iran face substantial challenges that are shared by few countries (for example, Iraq and Afghanistan). Owing to international sanctions imposed on Iran, even the best universities in the country lack the proper infrastructure for conducting high-level research. In STEM fields of study, it has long been a common problem for most Iranian graduate students to perform even the simplest measurements — mainly because the necessary instruments are not available or do not work properly. In addition, acquiring common chemicals and raw materials (for experimental research) or accessing high-speed core computers (for computational research) are very often extremely difficult and/or very expensive.

Meanwhile, investment in academia in Iran is at a bare minimum and there are very few or no proper grants for conducting high-quality research. For example, PhD students at best have access to no more than a couple of thousand US dollars to complete their thesis. Iranian students also must deal with an unsafe educational environment, as Iranian authorities have a long history of using security forces to detain, beat and arrest students over freedom of speech and protests. Therefore, it is very common for Iraninan university graduates to pursue academic research abroad.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

References

  1. Kang, S. K. & Kaplan, S. Lancet 393, 579–586 (2019).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Mahmoudi, M. & Keashly, L. Angew. Chem. Int. Edn Engl. 60, 3338–3344 (2021).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Particle Technology (LFG), Friedrich Alexander Universität Erlangen Nürnberg (FAU), Erlangen, Germany

    Saman Hosseinpour

  2. Creative Design Engineering Lab (Cdel), Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, School of Engineering, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK

    Pooya Sareh

  3. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA

    Saya Ameli Hajebi

  4. Department of Radiology and Precision Health Program, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

    Morteza Mahmoudi

Authors
  1. Saman Hosseinpour
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Pooya Sareh
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Saya Ameli Hajebi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Morteza Mahmoudi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Morteza Mahmoudi.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

M.M. discloses that (1) he is a co-founder and director of the Academic Parity Movement (www.paritymovement.org), a nonprofit organization dedicated to addressing academic discrimination, violence and incivility, (2) he is an advisor for and shareholder in Partners in Global Wound Care (PGWC), and a co-founder of and shareholder in NanoServ Corp. and Targets’ Tip Corp., and (3) he receives royalties/honoraria for his published books, plenary lectures and licensed patent. S.H. and P.S. are the advisory board members at the Academic Parity Movement. S.A.H. is a co-founder and director at the Academic Parity Movement.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Hosseinpour, S., Sareh, P., Ameli Hajebi, S. et al. Consider the home research environments of international students. Nat Hum Behav 7, 660–661 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01580-2

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01580-2

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing