ISC Joint meeting with ECO Science Foundation (ECOSF)

ISC joint virtual meeting with ECO Science Foundation (ECOSF) was held on January 14, 2024.

This meeting was held with the aim to develop joint scientific, educational and research relations between ISC and Eco Science Foundation and with the presence of Prof. Seyed Ahmad Fazelzadeh, ISC president, as well as Prof. Komail Tayebi, President of ECO Science Foundation (ECOSF) and Prof. Azhar Ali Shah, ISC EC member in West Asia.

At the beginning of this e-meeting, Prof. Fazelzadeh, ISC preseident, while welcoming the participants, mentioned about the activities, scientific and technological achievements of ISC such as evaluation, indexing and ranking of scientific publications and universities in addition to science and technology platforms such as Challenges and Solutions Platform, the portal to get to know elites and future makers (Dana).

Prof. Fazelzade continued: “Monitoring the science and technology of Islamic countries is one of the important missions of this institute. In this regard and according to a 10-year report (2013-2022) Web of Science and Scopus, Pakistan has won the seventh place”.

He added: “Among 57 Islamic countries’ universities, a total of 460 universities from 30 Islamic countries were eligible to be included in the ISC ranking of Islamic countries in 2022, while Pakistan ranked third with 41 universities.”

He mentioned: “According to ISC WUR BY SUBJECT in 2022, Pakistan has ranked third among Islamic countries”.

In the following, prof. Tayebi, ECO Science Foundation (ECOSF), while expressing his satisfaction with this meeting, said: “Eco has established three specialized agencies with the aim of economic development of the region, one of which is Eco Science Foundation, whose headquarters is located in Islamabad, Pakistan.”

He added: “Considering the international scientific activities of ISC, the expansion of scientific interactions using joint scientific capacities can be put on the agenda so that ECO members and the neighboring countries can also use these services.

He also expressed his interest in the continuation of these meetings to introduce ISC services to ECO subsets and expressed his readiness to cooperate in this field.

Noteworthy, ECO Science Foundation (ECOSF) is an intergovernmental organization and a specialized agency of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO). It was established in Islamabad, Pakistan in December 2011, with holding of the first meeting of Board of Trustees (BoT), the highest decision-making body. ECOSF aims to promote scientific and technology research with an end goal to raise socio-economic standing of ten member states (Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan).

Prof. Azhar Ali Shah also pointed to the importance of the two international organizations, ISC and ECO, and expressed his hope that in ECO conferences and meetings, especially the upcoming ECO meeting in Tehran, the panel introducing the services and capabilities of ISC will also be included in order to the interaction of ISC and ECO will bring more achievements to the Islamic scientific community.

He also suggested that joint programs be developed between the two parties in order to achieve the goals of the two sides.

In the end, it was decided to sign a scientific memorandum between ISC and ECOSF.