Nurturing Intellectuals in the Islamic Republic: The National Elites Foundation

• Main Author: Julie S. Leube
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Center for Near and Middle Eastern Studies 2013-05-01
• Series: Middle East : Topics & Arguments
• Subjects: Brain Drain; Elite; Migration; Education; Foundation; Iran
• Online Access: http://meta-journal.net/article/view/1039

<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; background: transparent;" align="JUSTIFY"><span style="font-family: Arial Unicode MS,serif;"><span lang="en-US">In the past decades, constant brain drain has become a serious challenge for the Islamic Republic of Iran. Since the beginning of the 1990s, awareness of the problem and hence measures to counter this trend have increased. After some efforts to attract Iranian expatriates’ interest in investment in—or even remigration to—Iran, in 2005 the </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial Unicode MS,serif;"><span lang="en-US"><em><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background: transparent;">National Elites Foundation </span></span></em></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial Unicode MS,serif;"><span lang="en-US">was established. The foundation focuses on identification of highly gifted individuals, and support and preservation of the domestic elites to which they belong. Both material and non-material support are granted to select groups of beneficiaries, thus reflecting the Islamic republic’s attempts to support and </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial Unicode MS,serif;"><span lang="en-US">care for its citizens’ public and private lives.</span></span></p>