Iranian research years in the past pointed to growth of the strike drones which were lighting up air defences throughout the Gulf and, by threatening delivery in the Strait of Hormuz, holding the world economic system hostage. It was in open-source information lengthy before the first Shahed drone crossed the Gulf – or the skies of Ukraine.
ASPI’s Critical Technology Tracker, constructed on such open-source information and launched in 2023, has constantly pointed to Iran as a rustic investing closely in a slender set of defence-relevant applied sciences.
Research traits are strategic indicators but are not often handled as such. The problem for Western governments, business and academia is to observe them systematically, before research outcomes coalesce into military functionality.
The Critical Technology Tracker, up to date in March with world 2025 educational publications, screens research output in 74 applied sciences drawn from precedence lists printed by Australia, the United States, Canada, China, South Korea and others. Across the applied sciences, Iran ranks eleventh. For 21 of those applied sciences, it’s in the prime 10.
Its general rating is beneath Japan’s however above France’s, with a research profile that displays concentrated investments in a slender set of priorities, formed by a long time of sanctions and broad exclusion from Western research networks.
Defence, vitality and supplies are the place Iran has positioned its bets. It ranks amongst the world’s prime research performers in sensible supplies, air-independent propulsion for submarines, superior composite supplies, coatings and nanoscale supplies. This is simply the type of home technological effort wanted by a sanctions-pressured military-industrial base. The outcomes have been seen for a while over Ukraine and now in the skies and waters of the Gulf.
Two paperwork have outlined the technique. Iran’s National Comprehensive Scientific Roadmap, printed in 2011, locations applied sciences in a hierarchy of priorities: vitality manufacturing, aerospace, nano and micro applied sciences and knowledge group applied sciences characteristic at the prime; quantum computing and robotics in the center; medical engineering and local weather change at the backside. The Comprehensive Science and Technology Document in the Defence and Security Domain (CSTD), printed in 2021, sharpened the deal with applied sciences related to defence functions, itemizing superior supplies, nanotechnology, propulsion programs and uncrewed programs as nationwide know-how priorities.
Iran’s research efficiency information follows this hierarchy with a transparent sample. Quantum applied sciences, for instance, are a transparent space of relative weak spot in Iran’s general research efficiency. The nation ranks thirteenth globally in quantum sensors, twenty first in computing and twenty second in communications. Iran additionally ranks twenty third in superior robotics.
The CSTD additionally referred to as explicitly for ‘a mutual spillover of technology between the military and civilian sectors.’ Publication information suggests this was already nicely underway before the doc appeared. Using a big language mannequin to categorise research papers by their likelihood of getting defence functions, our evaluation finds that it the dual-use class – general-purpose research with a reputable defence pathway – is exactly what has surged in Iran’s collaborations with China, the nation’s second largest collaborator after the US, since the mid-2010s.
In 2018, researchers affiliated with Sharif University of Technology – an establishment that’s closely linked to Iran’s military and missile applications and is on quite a few nationwide sanction lists – published work on low-cost GPS receiver architectures with interference rejection functionality. A separate 2018 paper by researchers affiliated with the Iran University of Science and Technology investigated GPS spoofing detection and mitigation strategies.
Much of the innovation in Shahed drones lies in assembling off-the-shelf overseas parts right into a deadly, cost-effective weapon. But some parts are Iranian designed, together with the Nasir GPS navigation module, which is tied to a particular form of antenna designed to select up satellite-navigation indicators whereas rejecting spoofing and noise jamming. The Iranian research mirrors that functionality.
Iran ranks fifth in nanomaterials research in the Critical Technology Tracker, with high-impact publication output at roughly 85 % of the US degree in 2025. One space the place this intersects with defence is ultra-high-performance concrete (UHPC) – a category of fabric that achieves far better tensile energy than standard mixes, hardening constructions towards earthquakes and high-energy impacts – akin to impacts by penetrator bombs. Iran has long-standing experience in UHPC. More current nanomaterials research is additional bettering traits of concrete, with work on components that may enhance strength-to-weight ratios, defend towards electromagnetic interference, or make the materials self-sensing – the place the materials’s electrical conductivity adjustments below completely different masses, which can be utilized to observe structural well being.
The fortification of Iran’s nuclear websites at Fordow and Natanz displays a long time of funding in hardened development. Whether that hardening proved enough towards huge ordnance penetrator strikes throughout the 12-Day War of June 2025 is a separate question – however the underlying research base ensures Iran can proceed bettering its buried and fortified infrastructure.
In 2024 Iran showed a design for an upgraded Fateh-class submarine with air-independent propulsion (AIP) for extended loitering underwater with out exposing itself to detection by operating diesel electrical energy technology. The result’s better endurance and stealth than in a pure diesel-electric submarine – and it may current a extreme menace in the Persian Gulf and close by coastal waters.
The AIP-equipped Fateh design has not been confirmed as operational, however research has been displaying that Iran’s curiosity lies in that path: the nation ranks third globally in AIP research. If the Shahed exhibits what occurs when Iranian research matures right into a fielded system, AIP submarines in the Hormuz Strait what could also be subsequent.
Iran printed its know-how priorities. Its research adopted, and weapons adopted the research. Published research is one among the few strategic indicators that strikes before functionality does: weapons seem in the subject after years of growth, however the information base that produces them accumulates brazenly lengthy before.
There is all the time a spot between research excellence and fielded know-how, however the two correlate. Research output sends a sign of what a rustic is prioritising and the technical capabilities it’s amassing in a selected subject. This shouldn’t be ignored.
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