Breaking barriers and forging innovations: examining the women’s contribution in defence science and technology through a case study of the defence science journal

Purpose Defence Science Journal (DSJ), established in 1949, is a multidisciplinary, peer-reviewed scholarly journal, especially in the field of Defence Science and Technology. The journal is published bimonthly, and along with print format, it is also available as an open access journal and accepts contributions from national and international authors. The purpose of this study is to highlight women’s contributions to the DSJ from 2014 to 2023, including year-by-year patterns of women authors and their productivity, analyses of institutions, prolific authors, area/subject-wise contributions, Indian collaboration versus foreign collaboration and citations of papers published in the journal. This study analyses the papers published in ten volumes (Volume 64–Volume 73) of the DSJ during the period of 2014–2023. By using data collected from the Scopus database, this study aims to provide insights into the role and impact of women researchers in defence-related research during this specified time frame. Design/methodology/approach This study focuses on analysing the papers published in the DSJ during the period of 2014–2023, specifically within the ten volumes ranging from Volume 64 to Volume 73. The data for this research is collected from the Scopus database, providing a comprehensive data set for examination. The data was selected by searching for the source title, DSJ in the Scopus database. The resultant data was further refined by year 2014–2023. The refined results were exported as csv file, then used for further analysis. The final data consisted of 869 papers in DSJ during the 10 years ranging from 2014 to 2023. The data was further sieved in terms of women contribution. For this purpose, each article was further verified with the print source. Findings This study reveals that there are about 87 papers published each year in the journal with contributions from men and women authors from scientific and academic institutions from India and abroad. Furthermore, this study examines the bibliometric data of 869 scholarly writings published in DSJ during 2014–2023 in respect of the women contributors. The analysis of data reveals that the collaboration deemed to be massive in 2014 and 2015 as determined by the degree of collaboration. Women authors from 26 nations worldwide published their research papers in the journal. This study outlines that 312 women authors (87.9%) from India are at the top of the list, making it the leading contributing nation followed by China 17 (4.78 %). Social implications This study suggests that there is a dire need for women researchers to come forward and publish their research findings not only for latest research opportunities but also to motivate budding women researchers. Originality/value Numerous studies have explored gender inequality in scientific publications; however, this study is one of its kind which understands the contribution of women and brought out a number of interesting observations for the women’s contributions in the area of Defence Science and Technology.