The evolution sustainable development in higher education: A bibliometric analysis (2014-2024)

Abstract

Higher education (HE) has a very important role in practicing and disseminating issues on sustainable development (SD). In recent decades, universities have competed to implement sustainable development (SD) in their curricula and educational systems. The aim of this study is to assess, through a systematic mapping of scientific literature, the development of research on SD in HE. Using metadata extracted from Scopus, a bibliometric approach was used to map the research literature on SD in HE. In this study, 2834 documents published between 2014 and 2024 were collected from the Scopus database. Citations, co-authorship and co-occurrence were examined using VOSviewer software. Findings indicate that research literature on SD in HE is mainly published in Spain and most citations come from English authors. Sustainable development, higher education and sustainability are common themes in the articles. These findings will be valuable for future research to identify 8 potential research areas of clusters, and develop new issues on SD in HE. Practically, this study provides a relevant literature review on SD in HE that can be used by universities leaders, communities and policy makers to develop a better framework for implementation SD in HE continuously.