Given the role of innovation as a major contributing factor to economic performance of regions and countries, many scholars have long been looking for proper indicators to identify and monitor innovative activities and their geographical distribution. Patents, as an indicator of innovative output, and analysis based on disclosed patent information have increasingly been used in national and regional policy-makings. In this research, for the first time, a databank of bibliographic information of patents registered in Iran in the period between 2008 and 2010 is built. The same dataset is used to address three research questions: (1) how innovative activities are geographically distributed among the Iranian provinces, (2) how the geographical distance from the capital affects the provinces' innovative performance, and (3) how the average household income of each province affects its innovative performance. Our research results indicate that innovative activities of Iran are highly concentrated in Tehran and few other provinces. In addition, the number of patents registered in each province is significantly and negatively correlated with its distance from the capital. The results also show that there is no meaningful relation between the average household income of each province and its patent counts.
Bagheri, S. K., Samandarali Eshtehardi, M., Peymankhah, S., & Shafifie, L. (2013). An analytical Look at the Geographically Distribution of Patented Inventions in Iran. Journal of Science and Technology Policy, 6(1), 17-27.
MLA
Seyed Kamran Bagheri; Mojgan Samandarali Eshtehardi; Sadegh Peymankhah; Leila Shafifie. "An analytical Look at the Geographically Distribution of Patented Inventions in Iran". Journal of Science and Technology Policy, 6, 1, 2013, 17-27.
HARVARD
Bagheri, S. K., Samandarali Eshtehardi, M., Peymankhah, S., Shafifie, L. (2013). 'An analytical Look at the Geographically Distribution of Patented Inventions in Iran', Journal of Science and Technology Policy, 6(1), pp. 17-27.
VANCOUVER
Bagheri, S. K., Samandarali Eshtehardi, M., Peymankhah, S., Shafifie, L. An analytical Look at the Geographically Distribution of Patented Inventions in Iran. Journal of Science and Technology Policy, 2013; 6(1): 17-27.
)
