Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide an overall picture of women’s participation in Iranian scientific production. Design/methodology/approach – A sample of 7,846 articles was obtained from the three ISI databases: Science Citation Index (SCI), Social Science Citation Index (SSCI), and Arts and Humanities Citation Index (AHCI) for the study period 2005-2010. The articles were broken down by gender. Then for the scope of this study, research productivity, collaboration pattern, scientific-disciplinary, and research impact were investigated. Findings – Achi-square test showed that there is a significant difference between the male and female research output in the three databases. Females accounted for 13 percent of the articles indexed in ISI databases during the study period. There is a gap of approximately 87 percent in research productivity between males and females in Iran. Iranian women are more active in the areas of chemistry, clinical medicine and general social sciences. Originality/value – The paper highlights the role of women in science and the gap of research productivity between men and women; it may help illuminate policy decisions to promote female research in the country.

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