What are the core concerns of policy analysis? A multidisciplinary investigation based on in-depth bibliometric analysis

The paper investigates the core concerns of policy analysis through an extensive bibliometric study to understand how policy problems are distributed across disciplines and countries and how these concerns evolve over time. Motivated by the widespread application of bibliometrics and a lack of a global, cross-disciplinary synthesis of policy analysis foci, the authors pose three research questions: (1) What core concerns are reflected in policy analysis and how do they mirror real-world social problems? (2) How do these core concerns change over time? (3) What are the differences in core concerns among countries and what drives those differences? The study aims to uncover past and present policy problems of concern and relevant options, provide clues for future policy analysis, and highlight potential gaps between academic research and policy agendas.

The authors situate their work within the growing use of bibliometrics to map knowledge development, collaboration patterns, and research fronts across diverse domains (e.g., cultural heritage, disease sub-areas, sustainable development goals). Prior bibliometric studies have examined specific policy areas such as agricultural policy, medical information policy, and science, technology and innovation policy. Despite these advances, the global research trajectory and focus of policy analysis as a whole have remained underexplored. The paper addresses this gap by profiling policy analysis across time, intensity, and scope, drawing on co-citation and keyword co-occurrence techniques to identify disciplinary clusters and evolving topics.

Data source and timeframe: Web of Science (WOS) Core Collection was used to retrieve publications on the topic TS = "policy analysis" for 2003–2021. An initial 118,535 articles were identified. Selection strategy: The study adopted a four-step approach. (1) Identification of influential research via most-cited papers using Essential Science Indicators criteria: the top 1% of papers by citations relative to their publication year were selected, yielding 1,287 most-cited articles (Dataset 1). (2) Discipline scoping via co-citation analysis of journals to guide field-specific datasets. (3) Construction of five additional field-based datasets by filtering policy analysis articles to journals representing major domains: medicine (Dataset 2, 7,963 items), environment (Dataset 3, 15,705 items), energy (Dataset 4, 6,253 items), economy (Dataset 5, 1,268 items), and multidisciplinary (Dataset 6, 2,243 items). Journal sets followed Web of Science Journal Citation Reports field definitions; multidisciplinary journals include titles such as Ecological Economics, Nature, PNAS, Nature Communications, and European Journal of Operational Research. Search strategies for each dataset are detailed (Table 1) using TS for topic and SO for source title filters. Bibliometric tools and analyses: VOSviewer was used to construct and visualize networks. Analyses included: (a) co-authorship networks at the country and organizational levels (threshold: organizations with more than 5 articles) to map key players and collaborations; (b) keyword co-occurrence analyses for topic mining, with common/meaningless terms removed; (c) citation analysis to identify influential sources and disciplines. Overlay visualizations tracked topic evolution over time. Indicators and processing: Publication trends (annual counts) were computed for the overall corpus and by field. Keyword thresholds varied per dataset (e.g., 1,778 of 16,719 keywords in medicine; 3,638 of 44,213 in environment; 1,225 of 15,027 in energy; 395 of 5,970 in economy; 648 of 9,467 in multidisciplinary met inclusion thresholds). Networks identified clusters corresponding to thematic areas (environment, medicine, policy systems, energy).

- Volume and growth: 118,535 policy analysis articles were published between 2003 and 2021. Output grew exponentially, with growth rates of 53.98% over 2017–2021 and 84.03% over 2012–2021. - Disciplinary distribution: Policy analysis is multidisciplinary, dominated by environment (15,705 articles), medicine (7,963), energy (6,253), economy (1,268), and multidisciplinary outlets (2,243). Citation analysis of most-cited items identified 51 key journals with environment-related titles most prominent, followed by medical, energy, economic, and multidisciplinary journals. - Collaboration patterns: 112 countries contributed to most-cited policy analysis. Among 2,286 universities identified, those from the USA (e.g., University of Washington, Harvard University), UK (University of Oxford, University of Cambridge), and China (University of Chinese Academy of Sciences) had the strongest collaboration links. Field-specific networks showed extensive international collaboration in medicine and energy; Chinese institutions were especially central in environment and energy. - Core topics and clusters: Co-word analysis revealed four clusters: environmental policy (e.g., carbon emission, climate change, sustainability), medical policy (e.g., public health, prevalence, mortality, risk factors), policy systems (frameworks, implementation), and energy (consumption, efficiency, electricity generation). Top keywords included carbon emission (occurrences 152), impact (145), policy (144), economic (88), growth (87), model (74), system (74), mortality (66), management (65), prevalence (59). - Temporal dynamics: In medicine, topic surges aligned with H1N1 (circa 2009) and COVID-19 (post-2019); recent hot topics include COVID-19, sex-specific mortality, life satisfaction, and the Affordable Care Act. In environment, earlier topics included Kyoto Protocol and acid deposition; recent attention turned to plastic pollution, advanced econometric methods (e.g., CS-ARDL), and population structure. In energy, early focus on restructuring, discount rates, and Kyoto; more recently, renewable energy technologies, energy communities, and effects of COVID-19. In economy, early focus on inventory and supply chain management expanded to sustainability themes: circular economy, life-cycle assessment, Industry 4.0, and automated vehicles. - Country differences and alignment with development stage: Developing countries (e.g., China) face strong environmental pressures from rapid, resource- and energy-intensive growth and urbanization, prompting policies such as the Atmosphere/Soil/Water “Ten” plans and environmental tax regulations. Developed countries (e.g., USA, UK) emphasize public health, decarbonization, energy technology and innovation, with the USA’s shale gas and renewables contributing to CO2 reductions and the UK pursuing carbon budgets and investment in clean energy. - Cross-domain linkages: Strong interconnection among economy, energy, and environment underscores sustainable development challenges (e.g., EKC hypothesis; links between economic growth and energy consumption), with growing interest in circular economy and greening supply chains (inventory, transportation modes, LCA, coordination).

The findings demonstrate that policy analysis output and influence have risen sharply in response to mounting real-world challenges. The mapped clusters and temporal overlays show how health crises (H1N1, COVID-19), environmental degradation (GHG emissions, climate change), and energy transitions shaped research priorities and policy debates. Cross-country comparisons indicate that national policy concerns track development trajectories: rapidly industrializing economies grapple with pollution and resource use, while advanced economies focus on health systems and decarbonization pathways. These patterns address the research questions by: (1) identifying core concerns—human health outcomes, environmental pressures (especially carbon emissions and climate change), energy consumption and transition, and the policy frameworks managing these issues; (2) showing how concerns evolve with global shocks and policy regimes (e.g., Kyoto Protocol era to broader sustainability and circular economy agendas); (3) revealing country-level differences linked to economic structure, urbanization, and governance capacity. The results highlight the necessity of integrated policy mixes balancing ecological integrity, energy security, and economic well-being, and suggest opportunities for international cooperation and knowledge transfer, particularly in decarbonization, resilient health systems, and sustainable supply chains.

This multidisciplinary bibliometric investigation clarifies the core concerns of policy analysis over two decades and maps their evolution across medicine, environment, energy, economy, and multidisciplinary research. The study shows that policy analysis concentrates on human health needs, environmental pressures driven by emissions and urbanization, energy consumption and transitions, and the pursuit of sustainable development. It also demonstrates that national policy foci align with development contexts, informing prospects for international dialogue and cooperation. Future research directions include: deepening integration across economy–energy–environment policy domains; systematically assessing the gap between academic research and policy agendas; enhancing methods to move beyond keyword-based inferences to capture policy intent and mechanisms; and advancing comparative country studies that link policy instruments to outcomes under differing institutional settings.

The study acknowledges three main limitations: (1) Keywords, while informative, may not fully capture an article’s essential intent; relying on them constrains interpretability. (2) The analysis covers academic research on policy analysis and does not establish alignment with actual policy agendas. (3) The study identifies correlations among phenomena, but the underlying causal mechanisms remain undefined.