Iranian academician joins COMEST

TEHRAN, Sept.2 (MNA) – An Iranian academician becomes a member of UNESCO’s World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology (COMEST). Azam Iraji Rad, president of the Institute for NanoScience and NanoTechnology of Sharif University of Technology, is the first Iranian scientist to become a member of COMEST. The Commission, set up by UNESCO in 1998, is mandated to formulate ethical principles that could provide decision-makers with criteria that extend beyond purely economic considerations. The Commission is composed of eighteen leading scholars from scientific, legal, philosophical, cultural and political disciplines from various regions of the world, appointed by the UNESCO director-general in their individual capacity. COMEST works in several areas such as environmental ethics, biodiversity, water and disaster prevention, the ethics of nanotechnologies, ethical issues relating to the technologies of the information society, science ethics, and gender issues in ethics of science and technology.