Ever since the characteristic difference between natural and social science was distinguished, the understanding and usage of research methods which suits the research question best, became a major topic in Methodology. The field of Public policy Studies witnessed the same encounter. Some researcher influenced by the ongoing debate between positivism and post-positivism ideas, introduced the “, Narrative policy framework”, . The NPF relies mainly on the assumption that the social reality is constructed by Narratives. The NPF which less than 10 years have passed since its publication will be discussed in this paper so the researchers will find his way with the theoretical and scientific dimension of the framework. In this regard following the theoretical explanation, the necessarily steps for operating a research with NPF will also be demonstrated.

Objective: The outbreak of the coronavirus in 2020 led the Iranian policymakers to narrate different stories and make their decisions, accordingly. The purpose of this study is to identify the Narratives of the Iranian government in the face of the pandemic. Methods: This is a qualitative case study conducted by applying a thematic analysis. Accordingly, the texts of the decisions made by the Iranian policy-makers were thematically analyzed and then labeled as Narratives. The derived Narratives were analyzed, successively. Results: Four distinct Narratives in policy-making decisions under the Covid-19 pandemic were extracted, including the Narrative of the need to reduce activities to combat disease, the Narrative of the need to continue activities, the anti-sanctions Narrative, and the Narrative of knowledge-based production and economics. Conclusion: The development of the policy Narrative framework enables the policymakers to classify their decisions and policies within the Narrative framework and to turn their intellectual apparatus into a tangible Narrative for their audiences. This article combined the form and the content dimensions of the policy Narrative framework and presented a new conceptual framework for it, which describes and analyzes the policy Narratives more comprehensively.

The complexity of the science, technology and innovation issues and the difficulty of understanding innovation policies effects, on the one hand, and the low effectiveness or undesirable effects of many of the existing policies, on the other hand, highlights the need for more precision in the formulation and selection of each element of them. designing a new policy or reviewing and criticizing proposed or existing policies, needs a framework that specify the essential elements of these policies in order to allow the analysis of the proportionality between their elements. Accordingly, these article examines the essential elements of policy programs and provides a framework for developing these programs based on these elements. Finally, the application of the proposed framework in the criticizing of existing programs is shown by reviewing the Iran's Sixth Development Plan in the field of science and technology.

Introduction: The ethical dimensions of agriculture need to be explored, distinguishing between ethics in agriculture and ethics of agriculture. Ethics in agriculture is traditionally based on abstract moral theory, formulated through logical reasoning, but often found inadequate to address the complex ethical challenges within agriculture due to its abstract nature and lack of practical visibility. Conversely, ethics of agriculture is approached within a context-specific framework derived from the research topic with the aim of providing more tailored solutions. Materials and Methods: A comprehensive review of the relevant literature is conducted, using a descriptive-analytical approach to provide a conceptual framework for understanding agricultural ethics. Conclusion: The article highlights the critical need for a comprehensive ethical framework to address the multifaceted ethical challenges in the agricultural sector. The importance of analyzing and resolving ethical dilemmas at all stages of agriculture is underscored in order to align practices with human ideals and to ensure ethical decision-making by stakeholders involved in agriculture.

This study proposes a framework for passage of a law in support of “Free Researchers”. Furthermore, the study describes the current activities of the private consultants in Iran. We used “policy research” method and conducted a survey for gathering the data. We surveyed a sample of 223 people and in addition to close questions, asked open questions and utilized the answers in the design of proposed framework.The survey was primarily focused on reasons of the tendency toward free research and prioritization of free researchers’ problems. The results indicate that factors such as Job dissatisfaction are among effective factors on decision to leave the country. We designed a conceptual model based on the resulted factors. Based on this model, hypothesis of relation between job dissatisfaction and decision to leave the country was found to be statistically significant. Other issues such as relation between university degree or education status and job dissatisfaction of free researchers were rejected. Furthermore, we discussed and evaluated the extent of free researchers’ problems in the framework.

The request for systematic data on the performance of public and nonprofit programs continues to increase across the world. For meeting this demand, policy evaluation applies social sciences research methods, especially political sciences to find the impacts of policy interventions systematically in order to improve social welfare through policy adaptations. Program and policy evaluation is a valuable learning strategy for increasing knowledge about the basic logic of policies, and the policies activities under way as well as about the results of policies. It may include constant monitoring of a program as well as one-shot studies of policy processes or policy impacts. The used approaches are based on social science research methodologies and professional standards. In Tehran, the capital our country, some factors such as the concentration of decision-making and decision-taking activities, production and service activities, and also activities related to public welfare, and state-funded large-scale investments have led to the problems caused by these concentrations such as lack of urban services, different types of pollutions, social problems and the potential risks of natural disasters. In this situation, public policy-making mechanism from the 1960s has adopted the policy of organizing the concentration of population in Tehran and several decisions have been made in relation to this policy. The main question in this paper is how to propose a public policy evaluation framework and apply it to analyze the success and failure of the population concentration organizing policy in Tehran over a specific period of time. To answer the above questions, a three-stage process has been designed and applied; in the first stage, using the indexing method, which transforms the concept of policy evaluation into detectable elements, a policy evaluation framework/ design is proposed. An evaluation design identifies what questions will be answered by the evaluation, what data will be gathered, how the data will be analyzed to answer the questions, and how the subsequent information will be used. This paper is focusing on evaluating the conceptualization of the given policy. In the second stage, related decisions affecting the organization of concentration of population and activities in Tehran are reviewed by tracking the legal texts and planning documents, which indicates the elements of the policy of organizing the concentration of population in Tehran. These include both urban and regional planning and sectorial policies documents and texts. In the third stage these traced documents have been analyzed using the proposed policy evaluation framework and the results of the policy evaluation have been reported. The final result of this paper is that although the policy of organizing population and activities concentration in Tehran from 1960s until now has positive impacts in terms of its goals, it has some shortcomings in terms of its conceptualization including unintended side effects, taking unachievable goals, not being internally coherent and not being consistent with policies in other policy fields.

The importance of female heads of households in providing the basic needs of household members on the one hand and the limitations they face in most socio-economic fields have made it necessary to pay attention to the issues of female heads of households in most societies including our country. The purpose of this study is to use the systematic review method to review and evaluate the policy proposals that have been proposed in Iran for women heads of households. A total of 296 articles and 5 reports were identified. In the review and eligibility phase, the total number of selected texts was considered to be 79 texts, of which 62 studies used the quantitative method and 17 studies used the qualitative method. Based on the studies that proposed policy proposals, the characteristics of female heads of the household, the axes of vulnerability, the evaluation of policies and proposals were determined. The findings showed that more policy proposals were made based on the characteristics of low literacy, being unemployed, and being middle-aged. Based on the axes of vulnerability, women heads of households are more vulnerable psychologically and socially than they are materially vulnerable in many cases. The evaluation of policies for women heads of households showed that the most interventions for the empowerment of women heads of households were focused on the economic field and were mainly pursued in the form of financial payments and did not pay enough attention to other aspects of women's empowerment, while the empowerment of women heads of households was successful when It is expected to simultaneously pay attention to their mental health and improve their social and economic status.