ISC from Iran and UHS sign MOU to establish ISC sub-office at Lahore

University of Health Sciences Lahore which remains a hub of academic activity in the field of medical sciences continues its march towards further progress enhancing its international collaboration and networking. October 28,, 2016 was yet another historic day in the life of UHS when it signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Islamic World Science Citation Center (ISC) located at Shiraz in Islamic Republic of Iran.

The MOU was signed by Dr. M.J.Dehghani President of ISC on behalf of ISC while Maj. Gen. Prof. Muhammad Aslam Vice Chancellor represented the University of Health Sciences. MOU signing ceremony was one of the important salient features of the recently concluded 3rd International Medical Education Conference organized by Council for Collaboration for Medical Education (CCME) at the conference dinner. The ceremony was also attended by His Excellency Mohammad Hossain Bani Asadi Counsel General of Iran at Lahore.

Two separate MOUs were signed on this occasion, one between ISC and UHS while the other between UHS and RICeST (Regional Information Center for Science and Technology).

These MOUs will ensure that ISC helps UHs to promote their status scientifically, assist it in internationalizing UHS by organizing training courses and consultations, tracing the scientific status of UHS and providing it reports periodically, indexing UHS scientific journals in its database, assess and monitor UHS research performance, ranking and evaluating scientific journals, analyze based on bibliometrics indicators and report the results to UHS.

ISC will also provide access to its products and databases to UHS, organize training courses on how to use each of their products, hold Scientometrics workshops to increase researchers performance. ISC will also rank faculty members and researchers of UHS. Both parties will endeavor to strengthen, promote and develop co-operation between ISC and UHS.

As per the other agreement signed with RICeST a sub-office will be established at UHS Campus to act as a focal point for RICeST. UHS will provide suitable facilities, internet connection, computer terminal for the sub-office, recruit staff with BS or MS degree in computer sciences or Librarianship and Information Sciences which will co-ordinate between ISC and UHS and all the universities in Pakistan. A week long training will be provided to the person selected for this post. The staffer selected will produce report every three months for RICeST and UHS will provide these services to the Pakistani academic community.

RICeST will provide a two year IP based access to its online database to UHS. Both parties have agreed to provide opportunities for the academic community to participate in conferences and international meetings, exchange of scientific publications, books, technical and research reports, computer software for educational and research purposes.

UHS will collect and provide Pakistani journals for the RICeST for indexing. Both parties will also hold joint workshops, seminars and conferences on issues of mutual interest. Joint information databases and databanks will be established for the benefit of users in both the countries. Both these agreements are for a period of five years which can be renewed later on.


Islamic World Science Citation Center (ISC)

Earlier Mr. Shaukat Ali Jawaid Chief Editor of Professional Medical Publications who was coordinating between ISC and UHS for the signing of this MOU presented a brief introduction of ISC and RICeST. Establishment of Islamic World Science Citation Center (ISC), he said, was approved by Islamic Conference of the Ministers of Higher Education and Scientific Research in a meeting held in Baku, Capital of Azerbaijan in 2008. It was finally established at Shiraz on April 29, 2008 by Ministry of Science, Research and Technology of Islamic Republic of Iran as a Scientometrics Center. ISC is Islamic world’s leading source of scholarly research data, compilation and analysis and it shares high quality, multidisciplinary scientific information.

Its major functions are to assess the research performance of scientists, universities, institutions and scientific journals in the Islamic countries to provide necessary grounds for enhancing the quality of research and establishing an efficient scientific network in the Muslim countries. It gives access and powerful tools to search, track, measure and collaborate in science, social sciences, arts and humanities. The multidisciplinary research platform allows users search numerous databases simultaneously.

ISC also ranks top six hundred Islamic countries, universities, research institutions with highest number of publications in most prestigious international scientific journals. ISC helps universities to promote their scientific status by mapping the scientific structure of the universities and providing them with necessary computer software.

Some of the products and services provided by ISC are:

1. Islamic World Journal Citation Report
2. Islamic World Science Citation Index
3. ISC English Current Contents
4. ISC World Scientific Contribution Reports
5. ISC Journal Performance Indicators
6. Fast XML Uploading System
7. ISC Master Journal List
8. ISC Ranking of Universities and Research Institutes of Islamic Countries


Regional Center for Science and Technology


This is a search and discovery choice for academic and research institutions, national governments, funding and publishing organizations in over forty countries including Iran and Regional countries located in Middle East, Central Asia, Indian Sub-continent, and North Africa. This is one of the fully automated information centers of Iran located in Shiraz.

It is a pioneering center in acquisition, process and dissemination of scientific and technical information aiming at facilitating Iran and regional countries scientific achievements through supporting educational and technical aspects of information management activities. This database provides access to cover to cover indexing of region’s most important multidisciplinary research covering scholarly journals, proceedings, published data sets and compact discs in English, Persian, Arabic and French.

In future it also plans to cover Turkish language as well. Students, faculty, researchers, analysts and programme manages can explore research and ideas from different disciplines around the region by leaping through thousands of indexed documents. There are various databases in this Center covering specific subjects allowing for in depth study of specialized fields and sub-specialties within an academic or research discipline. Some of its products include Persian General Database, Books, Conferences articles database, English Electronic Dissertations Database, Bank of Standard Tests in Psychology and Educational Services field, Theoretical and Applied Research Projects, Maps and Atlases Database besides Newspaper articles database. Prof.Junaid Sarfraz Pro Vice Chancellor of UHS conducted this session. Later Mementoes were also exchanged between ISC and UHS.