Evolution of research themes in Maritime Policy & Management—1973–2012

Abstract

From its first issue in 1973, Maritime Policy & Management (MPM) has sought to be the main outlet for shipping and port research. During its 40-year development, it has indeed become the flagship journal in the field marked by its inclusion into the SSCI list in 2011. This paper examines how maritime research has developed over the last four decades by reviewing all the published papers in MPM. There has been a remarkable inflow of authors and institutions to MPM in recent decades especially from Asian countries. While ‘shipping’ research has been the most popular research area, a relative increase in ‘ports’ research has been observed in recent years. While economics has been a dominant disciplinary base, management-related disciplines contributed to the journal in the 2000s, increasing the disciplinary diversity of MPM. The study is useful not only for understanding the past and current state of maritime research, but also for developing a concrete foundation to discuss further development of MPM.