At least 1,500 engineering and technical faculty members have left Iran’s leading universities over the past five years, according to Karan Abri-Nia, secretary of the Iranian University Professors’ Trade Union.
In an interview with KhabarOnline, Professor Ebrahim Azadegan of Sharif University of Technology said, “These days, we lose one university professor every week.”
Abri-Nia added that between the 2018-19 and 2022-23 academic years, about a quarter of the 6,000 faculty members in key engineering departments at top Iranian universities emigrated.
“I see migration as a wound on the body of our universities, one that keeps deepening,” he said.
The departures highlight a growing brain drain from Iran’s higher education system, long strained by political pressures, economic hardship, and limited academic freedom.
Vetting procedures
The two academics attributed the resignations and departures not only to economic pressures but also to security vetting procedures they said disqualified faculty for reasons such as having signed petitions, being unmarried, or having had a café photo in the US.
Azadegan gave the example of a faculty candidate with a doctorate from Princeton who was rejected from Sharif because “he had a photo with a few girls and boys in a café in America.”
In engineering mechanics at the University of Tehran, Abri-Nia said, “about ten professors either retired early to continue work abroad or went on sabbatical and never returned.”
He added that while many younger scholars accepted research visits abroad, they did not come back, effectively ending their ties to Iranian academia.
Emigrations up after 2022 protests
The boost in faculty emigration follows the Woman, Life, Freedom protests of late 2022, which both academics said coincided with a decline in intellectual freedom on campuses.
According to Azadegan: “We were faced with a disaster at Sharif University in the last three years: nearly 70 professors left and we still haven’t found adequate replacements.”
Azadegan described the events of 2022 as “dark days” for Sharif University, recalling that security forces attacked the campus during nationwide protests, beating many students and faculty “without cause” and imposing a heavy security presence.
In October 2022, security and plainclothes forces surrounded Sharif University, arrested between 30 and 40 students, and opened fire on those attempting to leave the campus.
He said that even now, women stationed at the university gates warn students about dress code violations, surveillance cameras cover much of the campus, and students are still summoned before disciplinary committees over compulsory hijab rules.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry has warned staff about the incident, urging increased caution.
“Recently, there have been reports of [diplomats] being added to WhatsApp groups, not through their contacts. These are groups that are opened and run by our adversaries from phone numbers from Iran, Pakistan, and more,” the advisory said, according to Times of Israel.
“Therefore, it is necessary to be vigilant about the groups you join and are added to, and even change the settings so that you can only be added to the groups by contacts who are registered with you,” it added.
Iran International sought comment from Israel’s Foreign Ministry, which did not respond.
Israeli intelligence analyst Ronen Solomon told Iran International the reports were plausible, adding that a dedicated Revolutionary Guards unit known as Department 50 is responsible for such cyber operations.
“If I’m Iranian, I can build a group where the name is similar to one that they’re already using, so it could be an easy way to collect information. If you have the number of the target you can put it in your list in the phone, and if their privacy definition is ‘all’ and not ‘only contacts’ you can easily do it, but even if you do it, you don’t control their Whatsapp," he said.
According to Solomon, “The Iranians have shown that they can collect lists of diplomats because sometimes it’s listed online, in the public domain of embassies, and they can put you in a special group that’s opened with a cover story. When they’re sharing a post in their group, you’ll also see it in your WhatsApp so you can click on a link and be targeted in a cyber attack."
After the June war between the two archenemies, Iran International reported the uptick in cyber attacks between the two sides.
”Although the Iran-Israel ceasefire has paused direct military engagement, cyber operations have intensified," Marwan Hachem, co-founder of FearsOff cybersecurity experts, told Iran International.
“Since the truce began, nearly 450 cyberattacks have been recorded against Israeli targets—many attributed to pro-Iran hacker groups,” he said at the start of July.
In a message to Ghamari’s successor, Brigadier General Yusuf Hassan al-Madani, Pakpour hailed the slain commander’s “heroic struggle in defending Yemen’s sovereignty and confronting Zionist crimes,” saying his death had “etched a lasting chapter in the history of Yemeni resistance.”
“The IRGC renews its commitment to the lofty ideals of the resistance front and the liberation of al-Quds al-Sharif,” Pakpour said, using the Arabic name for Jerusalem.
“We declare our full readiness to strengthen spiritual and strategic bonds with Yemen’s armed forces in confronting global arrogance and international Zionism.”
He congratulated al-Madani on his appointment, calling him a “steadfast fighter” whose leadership would “continue the proud path of the martyr Ghamari and reinforce the resistance front against the enemies of the Islamic nation.”
The message followed confirmation by Yemen’s Houthi forces last week that Ghamari, their military chief of staff since 2016, was killed in an Israeli airstrike.
Israel said the attack, which also killed the Houthi-appointed prime minister, targeted senior officials involved in hundreds of missile and drone operations against Israel.
The Houthis -- backed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah -- have intensified drone and missile strikes against Israel since the Gaza war erupted in October 2023. Israeli air raids in Yemen this year have killed dozens of senior Houthi figures and civilians, according to local health authorities.
Yemen remains split between the Iran-backed Houthis, who have controlled Sanaa and much of the north and west since 2014, and the internationally recognized government led by the Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) formed in April 2022. Despite a Saudi-led intervention launched in 2015, the Houthis still rule areas housing about two-thirds of Yemen’s population, while the PLC governs parts of the south and east.
Analysts say the group remains heavily dependent on Iranian support for advanced weapon systems, including ballistic missiles and precision-guided drones.
Earlier reports indicated the militia has turned increasingly to drone warfare as shipments of missile components from Iran have been disrupted by naval interceptions.
Tehran denies direct involvement in the Houthis’ attacks but continues to publicly back the group’s campaign against what it calls Zionist aggression and Western hegemony in the region.
