IRANIAN EXILES

● The Iranian-born diaspora has formed significant communities all around the world, from Lahore to Paris and Los Angeles to Vancouver. According to the Stanford Iran 2040 project, an academic initiative that conducts research on issues related to the future of the Iranian economy, data indicate that the total number of Iranian-born emigrants increased from about half a million people prior to the 1979 revolution (which resulted in the toppling of the monarchy and the establishment of an Islamic republic) to 3.1 million in 2019, corresponding to 1.3 per cent and 3.8 per cent of the country’s population respectively. The project, which is also looking at the subsequent brain drain from Iran, notes that there are 130,000 Iranian-born students enrolled in foreign universities and around 110,000 scholars of Iranian descent affiliated with universities and research institutes outside of the country. In rough terms, this figure corresponds to a third of Iran’s total human resources in research as measured by headcount.