The Scientific Meaning of the Cultural Revolution: Scientific Nationalism in Post-Revolutionary Iran By examining the development of the Iranian research institute for reproductive biomedicine and stem cell—the Royan Institute—this paper presents a revisionist account of the politically-laden portrayal of the Iranian Cultural Revolution of 1980s. Based on archival research and oral history interviews with Royan officials in Tehran, a content analysis of Royan’s newsletter and publications, and an examination of the literature on the Islamic bioethics and the Iranian Revolution, this study argues that the Cultural Revolution—which led to the closure of universities for three years, intellectual censorship, and a sharp exacerbation in brain drain—had a scientific arm, which has often escaped the attention of scholars of modern Iran. Scientific progress has always been part of the agenda of Iran’s post-revolutionary political leaders to battle against what they saw as cultural dependency, cultural assault, and colonial universities. It is, hence, problematic to reduce the Cultural Revolution to a religiopolitical narrative focusing on the Islamicization of academia and to describe the Cultural Revolution exclusively as a period of aggressive and discriminatory policies against secular-minded academics. The Cultural Revolution had two wings: cultural and scientific. Royan Institute, named after the Persian word for embryo, is a non-profit scientific organization located in the capital city of Tehran. Royan was initially established by Dr. Saeid Kazemi Ashtiani and his peers in the early 1990s as the first Iranian research institute for reproductive biomedicine and infertility treatments. However, since inception in the early post Iran-Iraq War, the research and therapeutic activities of Royan have expanded to include stem cell research as well as biotechnology. Royan Institute declares itself to be non-governmental because it does not operate under the auspices of the presidential administration. However, Royan is a state institution and is affiliated with the Academic Center for Education, Culture and Research (ACECR). ACECR is a post-revolutionary state agency, founded by the members of the Cultural Revolution Headquarters on 7 August 1980 to realize the goals of the Cultural Revolution after the Revolution of 1979. The Cultural Revolution Headquarters was later renamed to the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution (SCCR). SCCR is state body founded by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1984 to purify the cultural atmosphere of the country, especially the educational system in universities, from western influences. SCCR played a key role in the Iranian Cultural Revolution.