Iran underwent a silent revolution in its hard sciences in the last two decades. A nucleus of a scientific community has been set up but it is far from being institutionalized. The problems seen from the point of view of the scientists themselves is the gist of the research done in Iran in 2005. The discussion will be on the subjective feeling of the scientists, the modes of organization of scientific activity, the major poles of science and their role as seen by the scientists themselves, the major stumbling blocks in the scientific activities in Iran and the emergence of a new generation of scientists.

Farhad Khosrokhavar is a Professor at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) - Cadis, Paris (France) since 1998. He was previously associate professor at EHESS-Cadis (1991-98) and Rockefeller Fellow (1990-91). His research interests include political sociology, sociology of religion, contemporary Islam and Iran. He has published several books in the aforementioned topics including: Les nouveaux martyrs d'Allah, Flammarion, 2002; L'instance du sacré: essai de fondation des science sociales, Cerf, 2001; La recherche de soi, Fayard, Paris, 2000; L'Iran: comment sortir d'une révolution religieuse?, Seuil, 1999. In particular, he has written four articles about the institutional and social problems of the young scientific community in Iran, which are published in Journal Critique, Iranian studies and an Indian journal by sage publication.

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