Exploring the research dynamics of futures studies: An analysis of six top journals

Abstract

This paper focuses on the global literature on Futures Studies and foresight over the last thirty years by using a bibliographic dataset from the Scopus and using an integrated statistical methodological approach. Bibliometric measures, knowledge mapping tools, topic modelling, Geographical Information Systems and network analysis are used to understand the scholarly literature’s evolution, main research areas, temporal evolution, geographical differences, and fragmentation. This allows to outline a separation between research areas and understand the dynamics of the main topics. The aim of this research is to fill the gap in the literature regarding the mapping of research themes in Futures Studies and foresight, as well as their temporal evolution and geographical distribution. Results showed a notable growth in the number of published articles in the last 32 years and identified (through Latent Dirichlet Allocation) 21 topics, which summarize the most important research themes in the context of Future Studies and foresight. A dynamic topic model helped to understand the evolution of topics, while the network analysis provided quantitative measures on the interactions between the topics as well as the international collaborations. Finally, a geographical analysis of both authors and topics highlighted the global distribution of research on Futures Studies.