On December 27, 2018, the workshop entitled “Two decades overview of Scientific Research in Islamic World: Republic of Azerbaijan’s Status in Global Ranking Systems & WoS” was conducted by Library and Information Center of Khazar University in partnership with the Regional Information Center for Science and Technology (RICeST) and Islamic World Science Citation Center ISC), Iran, at Khazar University. It aims to encourage Khazar University researchers to take part in shaping research and development agenda through its workshops and to provide discussion on current research and development approaches and tools.

Dr. Mohammad Javad Dehghani, President of ISC & RICeST and Dr. Mohammad Reza Falahati Qadimi Fumani, Associate Prof. Office of International Scientific Cooperation, Director, Consultant to the President, RICeST & ISC gave an overview of the RICeST & ISC activities. A special attention was paid the Global Ranking Systems and Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) University Ranking. They also gave the specific objectives of the future seminar and provided points to meet the expectations of the participants.

Dr. Javad Dehghani reiterated that one of the goals in conducting the seminar is to encourage the participants to publish scientific articles in internationally recognized journals. Dr. Reza Falahati emphasized the need to prepare institution-specific efforts related to increasing the number of publications.

An important part of their presentation was devoted to a general analysis of publication activity in Azerbaijani universities and in more detail using the example of Khazar University. At the end of the workshop various strategies were recommended to improve quality of research outputs. Some of the strategies include research collaboration between various universities and institutionalization of various incentive systems to encourage researchers to publish in reputable journals.

The workshop was attended Khazar University faculty, PhD students, librarians and participants from various Azerbaijani Universities.

After workshop two Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) were signed between Khazar University and RICeST and ISC. As part of these agreements, a branch office of the RICeST & ISC was established at Khazar University LIC to the benefit of Persian students and faculty members as well as out-campus users interested in, or in need of, full-text Persian scientific information.

Khazar University Community has got free of charge full text access to more than 20 scientific Persian databases.