The school of mechanical engineering is the oldest school of engineering in Iran which began its activities in 1929 under the title of superior vocational college.
The wise selection of five vital industrial disciplines for teaching purposes including, aviation, pipelines, mechanic of machines, thermal machines, and machine design, represents an influential role performed by this old school on the country’s development plans projected earlier.
More than five decades of effort created an inevitable and irreplaceable role for this college to train students and engineers with excellent practical and hands-on experiences compared to rival colleges in Tehran.
Early Growth – Small but Valuable Steps Forward
After the 1979 revolution and upon the beginning of the imposed eight years war (1980-1988) and based on the departure of overseas advisers and their affiliates, the conditions for various industries in the country, especially military industries, were accompanied by many challenges, which marked another milestone in the history of the school. Consequently, the highly-trained recent graduates joined technical sections and research centers of various industrial sectors, public services, and self-sufficiency industries, so-called Jahad. They could successfully establish a new semi-advanced model of bilateral cooperation with local industrial and public sectors. At that stage, however, the school’s main goal was toward stable and reliable training of highly skilled human resources according to the needs and necessities of the country.
In the mid-90s, and upon the return of several government-funded graduate students in prestigious foreign universities, a new chapter of activities began. Furthermore, the establishment of research laboratories, postgraduate studies, and the initiations of new modes of mutual and bilateral cooperations with numerous local industrial sectors, besides the definition of industrial services based on advanced and new practical knowledge, represented a re-constructed and distinctive shape and body of this school.
Early Development
Upon expansion of industrial communities and sectors in the past decades, the academic orientations of school align with the international standards were proposed and applied within two main directions of fluid-heat transfer and solid mechanics in the undergraduate level and the five disciplines including applied design, energy conversion, aerospace, manufacturing, and biomedical engineering in the postgraduate level. In addition, the M.Sc and Ph.D. degrees were initiated according to international standards. Therefore, a school with identical teaching and research standards as world-class universities and good partnerships and impacts on industrial trends were targeted nationally and globally.
Maturity and Great Mission
The competitive situation within industrial communities, besides general understanding of the concept and nature of modern and advanced technologies as the key to survival and remain competitive in the market, and remarking the next decade as the decade of industrial revolutions based on deep technical knowledge led to the definition of an excellent mission for this school. In this regard and in addition to commitments and respects to fundamental pillars of education, original research, and development of related infrastructure, the successful and robust entrance into new areas of activities including commercialization, turning ideas into products, sales and creating intellectual property, completing the chain of need discovery, knowledge development, technology extraction, Product/service manufacturing, commercialization, and sales led to change of school’s role and mode of activities from the classical model to an entrepreneurship model.
As a result of changes to a new direction, four unique innovation centers were established in energy, health, hydro technics, and manufacturing technologies. In addition, having great affiliates such as the Iranian Composite Institute and the Gas Turbine Institute are tremendous assets and resources for this school within this challenging path to pass. Furthermore, in addition to new targets and orientation, and with the nobility of the social nature of science and technology in today’s world, special attention was paid in the past two decades to developing international agreements and cooperations in both education and research activities with neighboring and world-class universities. In this regard, joint and dual degree programs were established with prestigious European universities.
It is anticipated that with great supports and contributions of all students, professors, and distinguished alumni currently employed in both academia and industries, long, robust, meaningful, and decisive steps could be taken towards new missions targeted for the school of mechanical engineering of Iran University of Science and Technology as the oldest national school of engineering.
Former Deans of the School of Mechanical Engineering
