Trends in funding research and international collaboration on greenhouse gas emissions: a bibliometric approach

Abstract

The Web of Science Core Collection platform was used to withdraw the papers included in this study. The studied period comprised from inception till 2018. Trends in research, journals of publication, subject areas of research, keywords most frequently used, countries of publication, international collaboration, and trends of funding research were also analyzed. A total of 3902 articles were published, most of them (52.5%) during the five-year period 2014-2018. The area with the highest number of papers was environmental sciences (41%), followed by energy fuels (16.6%) and engineering environmental (15.7%). "Nitrous oxide emissions" was the most frequent word, followed by "Carbon dioxide emissions" and "Methane emissions". Other words that stood out were "Life cycle assessment", "Climate change" and "Environmental impacts". The United States was the country with the highest productivity (27.9%), followed by China (12.8%) and the United Kingdom (9.6%). There was a concentration of research in recent years, as more than 80% of the papers were published in the last 10 years. The journals that published the largest number of publications were devoted mainly to environmental studies (sciences and engineering), sustainable and green science and technology, energy and fuels, economics, and agriculture. Half of the works were published in Europe and the other half between North America and Asia. Two thirds of the works (67%) were financed compared to a third that were not financed. The percentage of funded works has been increasing over the last decade, which is seen as an indication of the importance of GHGE.

Keywords: Funded research; Greenhouse gas emissions; Impact of research; International collaboration.