Contribution of Iran in Sport Sciences production in the World, Asia and Middle East

Background and aim: Nowadays, research is considered as a basic infrastructure for development of countries. The aim of this study was to determine the contribution of Iranian scientific production in the field of sport sciences in the Middle East, Asia and world. Material and methods: In this scientometric study, data were collected from Scimago and Scopus databases. The research population included all papers indexed in the databases in the field of sport sciences from 1996 to 2015. The extracted data were analyzed using Excel and SPSS. Findings: Results showed from1996 to 2015, Iran indexed 723 scientific degrees in the Scopus, which put Iran at the rank of 32nd, 7th and 3th in the world, Asia and Middle East, respectively. Of all documented papers, there were 6556 articles cited, of which 911 were self-citations. The H index, which indicates the quality of scientific papers, is also 37, which is very low compared to the total number of articles in Iran. Conclusion: In the field of sport sciences, Iran has a relatively good rank in the world, Asia and Middle but in terms of quality (considering the h index), it does not have a good situation. Therefore, it is necessary for evaluation indexes of researchers' papers in universities and research institutes to change from the consideration of quantitative indicators to the qualitative and innovative indicators and the novelty of the research subject, and to financially support the applied and citable research in addition to determining the research priorities