Dr Aliakbar Jafari (Department of Marketing) organised the 1st Biennial International Conference in Humanities at the University of Tehran, Iran, in September, in co-operation with Professor Alireza Salehi, the Scientific Representative of the Iranian Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology in the UK and Ireland.
As the general secretary of the conference, Dr Jafari stressed that the aim of the conference was to enhance the status of Humanities and Social Sciences in Iran. The two-day conference attracted more than 200 scholars from inside and outside of the country and created a platform for discussing the possibilities of improving the conditions of education and research in Humanities and Social Sciences in Iranian universities.
The major theme of the conference was to improve theory development and foster interdisciplinary research in different areas of scholarship. The conference which attracted some of Iran's most eminent academics was a great success. During the conference, Dr Jafari chaired the English session and was also an academic referee for best paper and poster selections. In the opening and closing ceremonies of the event Dr Jafari provided the audience with a comprehensive report of the conference and the future plans for the next biennial in 2012.
While in Iran, Dr Jafari was interviewed by the Scientific and Cultural News section of the IRIB Channel 4 in Tehran. In his role as the General Secretary of the 1st Biennial International Conference in Humanities, Dr Jafari spoke about the importance of enhancing the status of Humanities and Social Sciences education and research in Iran and other non-Western contexts. He emphasised that the sustainable development of societies around the world seriously requires fostering interdisciplinary research in different areas of scholarship so that a bulk of emerging multi-dimensional social problems are addressed appropriately and in due course.
He stated that improving people's lives around the world partially but significantly depends on how deeply Humanities and Social Sciences are taught, researched, and applied to local contexts. Since development in transitional economies has been looked upon mainly from an economic perspective, there is a risk of rapid growth of technological and physical infrastructure at the expense of human development. Highlighting the importance of Humanities and Social Sciences to development, Dr Jafari called for further collaborations between the university and social policy makers in human societies (particularly developing countries).