According to the public relations office of the Research Institute for Islamic Culture and Thought, on Thursday, 2025-01-04, during the closing ceremony of the Second National Policy-Making Award, the winners of this national festival were announced and honored.
The research and activities of think tanks are highly significant for improving the quality of policy-making and macro-level decision-making in any country. The efficiency of these activities on a national scale, when carried out with proper methodology and pursued diligently, can be very high. However, a review of the status of think tanks in the country and the quality of their research and activities reveals that the scope of operations and the impact of think tanks in the country can be seriously expanded both qualitatively and quantitatively. It seems that one of the reasons for the limited effectiveness of some think tanks is the lack of suitable models for research and think tank activities, as well as the unfamiliarity with impact models.
In this regard, the National Policy-Making Award aims to identify some successful models that have achieved positive impacts in the realm of policy-making and decision-making in the country. Along with providing material recognition, the award seeks to introduce these models as exemplary frameworks to the intellectual ecosystem of the country.
The first round of the National Policy-Making Award was held as a pilot in 2019 under the title of the “National Award for Intellectual Development and Policy-Making.” In this round, 50 projects from 16 think tanks competed, and after two stages of evaluation by the scientific committee and the final judges of the award, five top projects were introduced and honored.
The second round of the National Policy-Making Award was officially held in 2020 under the title of the “First National Policy-Making Award” with the participation of 52 think tanks. A total of 253 projects were submitted, of which 207 met the initial eligibility criteria for the award. In the first stage of evaluation, 61 projects were selected for in-person presentations in thematic panels.
During the closing ceremony, which was attended by prominent figures from various levels of governance, a circle of appreciation was held for the winners of the Second National Policy-Making Award. The award for the best research in the monitoring section of the National Policy-Making Award was presented to the book Cyber Theology, authored by Hojjat al-Islam Dr. Alireza Qaemi-Nia, a faculty member of the Epistemology and Cognitive Sciences Group at the Research Institute.
