Science, Technology, and Innovation Status in Iran: Main Challenges ATA HESHMATI and SEYED MEHRAN DIBAJI Announcing the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a historic agreement dissolving international sanctions against Iran has raised hopes for Iranians to restore their role in the global economy, which could lead to a signifcant change in the status of the national science, technology, and innovation system. This article discusses the changes in policy structure and the impacts of the sanc- tions on Iran’s scientifc performance. We shall also examine the past intensive increasing trend and some recent drawbacks in science and technology outputs of Iran in terms of various scientometric and innovation-oriented indicators. We aim to show how the emerging opportunities can transform Iran’s economy into a knowledge-based economy and what challenges this country is facing to reach this goal. Keywords: Sanctions, science and technology policy, higher education, innovation, Iranian studies, Iran Introduction Despite some shortcomings in science and technology (S&T) production, Iran has made signifcant advances during the last decade. In particular, in 2010, Iran reached the frst place in the world in terms of the growth rate of scientifc publications (Akhondzadeh, 2013; MacKenzie, 2010). Its dramatic growth also has been cited Science, Technology & Society (2019): 1–34 SAGE Publications Los Angeles/London/New Delhi/Singapore/Washington DC/Melbourne DOI: 10.1177/0971721819873192 Ata Heshmati, Graduate student at STS program, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada and Researcher at Sharif Policy Research Institute, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran. E-mail: ata.heshmati@alumni.ubc.ca Seyed Mehran Dibaji (Corresponding author), Postdoctoral Associate at Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139 USA. E-mail: dibaji@mit.edu Acknowledgements: The authors would like to thank Professor Masashi Shirabe for his helpful discussions related to this article. We are also grateful to Dr. Maryam Ejaredar, whose comments greatly improved this work.