Playing with the new stats site from the Iranian Nanotech Initiative I couldn’t resist a few comparisons. Here’s a comparison between the UK and Iran of articles published on nanotechnology – the site explains the methodology in terms of keywords and of course these comparisons are never perfect. While Iran seems to be closing the gap this is based on numbers of articles rather than their impact. Rather than overtaking the UK, it does show the overall trend in Iranian nanotech.
The site does provide a good resource for comparing various metrics, although some, such as “Number of manufacturing firms in nanotechnology with nano-scale certificate” are only applicable to Iran.
While it’s not perfect, it does at least provide a variety of metrics for comparing various initiatives, something that many countries have been struggling with for years. I’ve mentioned the Iranian Nanotechnology Initiative Council before, and this site is just the latest in a string of initiatives ranging from participation in ISO standards committees to Nanotech Olympiads.