Pioneering Carbon Research: Unveiling a Decade of Academic Exploration through SCIE Highly Cited Papers

Abstract

This study addresses the critical need for understanding journal publication trends in carbon research, which plays a vital role in advancing the field, guiding research priorities, informing policy decisions, and assessing the sustainability of efforts to combat carbon-related challenges. The primary objective is to analyze 19,155 highly cited articles and review papers published globally between 2013 and 2022, indexed in the Science Citation Index-Expanded (SCIE) dataset of the Web of Science Core Collection. The study examines key aspects of publication platforms, including publishers, journal titles, affiliated categories, and open access status, to assess changes in publication dissemination. Text mining techniques were employed to analyze author keywords and abstracts, identifying emerging trends in carbon research across multiple academic disciplines. Additionally, the geographic distribution of researchers was studied to track shifts in the global landscape of expertise in this field. The study introduces an innovative 3-dimensional analysis system, categorizing research subjects into platform (x-axis), text (y-axis), and scholars (z-axis). Methodologies such as text mining, CiteSpace, and ArcGIS were applied to analyze the trends over the past decade, offering new insights into the evolution of carbon research. This approach provides a comprehensive framework for understanding the development of carbon research, offering valuable tools for scholars and institutions engaged in the field.