Mapping the Global Academic Support for Sustainable Development Goal 7: A Bibliometric Analysis and Topic Modelling Approach

Abstract

The Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG-7) promises to ensure the affordable and clean energy to the world. The United Nations (UN) has set a target for 2030, which can only be achieved through academic excellence. The present study aims to analyze the academic research support of SDG 7 from a global perspective by using bibliometric analysis and topic modelling approaches using Orange Python-based software. The present study extracts the scholarly publications from the lens database from 2015 to 2022 and the dataset consisted of 918 publications with 18,377 citations related to the SDG 7. These including 121 single-author and 797 multiple-authors publications. Most of the papers have been published in open-access journals. Environmental Science and Pollution Research International (5343 citations; 225 publications and CPP 23.74) was the most impactful journal, Muntasir Murshed (13 publications, 421 citations, CPP 32.3) was the most influential author, and China was the most productive country. Under co-occurrence analysis, Clean Energy, Environmental Economics, Health, Affordable Energy, Climate Change, and Business, six different denoted clusters were found, while in the topic modeling approach, six key topics were identified, in which three topics were related to economics and the other were energy-related and climate change. Environmental, renewable energy, and economics were the top words used in SDG 7, and six key documents on each topic were identified according to the distribution and weighting of the topics. The Implications of the research findings and addressing research gaps can inform researchers, policymakers, and funding agencies involved in advancing SDG 7 to help accelerate the achievement of the SDGs in the decision-making process.