One of the first tasks to tackle any scientific publication is to review all the scientific literature on the subject. This article presents a methodology that allows analyzing scientific trends in a discipline through a bibliometric analysis. Specifically, the field of Economic Geography is used as a case study, Web of Science (WoS) has been chosen as the database for this analysis. With a set of 4,307 publications, various bibliometric indicators are analyzed, such as the evolution of scientific production, the agents involved (countries and organizations) and topics addressed, in order to see the evolution of the scientific output and the thematic specializations of Economic Geography from 1920 to the present.

Carbon footprint (CF) research has received increasing attention in recent years, as evidenced by a rise in publications and citations, reflecting a growing concern for the environmental impact of human activities. However, the alignment of this scientific literature with the three dimensions of sustainability performance provided by the TBL paradigm (people, planet, and profit) has received limited attention. This study addresses this research gap by undertaking a large-scale bibliometric analysis of 9032 Web of Science (WoS) publications from 1992 to 2020. At the macro (journals) and micro (papers) levels, a methodology approach to classify research publications according to TBL dimensions was designed. The results indicate that the output and impact of CF research are balanced with respect to the environmental (planet) and economic (prosperity/profit) dimensions, while the social impact is balanced with respect to the people+profit dimensions. Other than that, “Affordable and Clean Energy” (3761 publications) and “Climate Action” (3091 publications) are the most frequently represented (and interconnected) objectives. The results obtained contribute to a greater understanding of the contribution of CF research to the attainment of the SDGs.

Higher education institutions (HEIs) have been undertaking considerable efforts to embed sustainability into their system; however, there have been limited studies on the incorporation of sustainability into research. In parallel, it has been found that women have an important role in contributing to sustainability since they are more engaged and have a more holistic perspective on sustainability than men. These two phenomena have resulted in limited studies about the contribution of women to sustainability research (i.e., in scientific publishing). A bibliometric analysis of more than 39,000 documents (with 147,090 authorships) was done to fill this gap, focusing on sustainability peer-review publications in Europe between 2015 and 2020. The results show that women's presence in sustainability research has been increasing during the last years; however, there are still few female authorship publications, even in fields that have been traditionally women-oriented. In addition, their publications have been less recognized by the scientific community. The results also show substantial gender differences in terms of author leadership, where female senior researchers are more likely to mentor female junior researchers than men. Female researchers tend to collaborate nationally, but they could improve their international collaboration since this can improve their research and impact. More support should be provided to female researchers to help foster women's sustainability engagement and holistic perspectives, reduce existing negative feedback loops, and increase positive ones. Achieving gender equality is sine qua non in achieving sustainable societies.

Purpose

Government-owned companies (GOCs), such as ports, have engaged in efforts to become more sustainable. Most of such efforts have been technological and policy ones and mainly focusing on the environment, with limited research on organisational change management. This paper aims to provide insights into how ports have been addressing sustainability change forces and pressures.

Design/methodology/approach

Twelve semi-structured interviews were conducted with top-level directors and sustainability managers, representing ports across Europe’s maritime regions and a range of port types and sizes. The interviews were analysed using grounded theory’s constant comparative analysis.

Findings

The findings highlighted that the ports’ success in their process to become more sustainable depends on how they take advantage of the thrust forces and reduce the drag ones. The findings serve to develop the “ports’ sustainability change management framework”, with five stages: reactive, proactive, transactive, interactive, and sustainable port.

Practical implications

Ports, and other GOCs, should capitalise on their private–public nature in their contribution to making societies more sustainable by adopting a holistic perspective and interactive changes.

Originality/value

This paper provides a dynamic perspective on corporate sustainability efforts, particularly on GOCs, through organisational change management complementing technocentric and managerial approaches.

Humanity has experienced the impact of an unsustainable economic model at all levels. This topic has crystallized in different summits and conferences during the 20th century. As a result of this concern, the concept of sustainable development (SD) emerged. However, it has received much criticism for being highly anthropocentric and compartmentalized, and lacking conceptual coherence or interconnectedness among all the aspects involved. The introduction of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2000 and the recent Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015 heralded a new era. They represent a blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all, in which all stakeholders need to be involved. At this point, higher education institutions (HEIs) have a central role to play and sustainability has emerged as a policy priority for science. The objective of this study is to investigate the patterns of sustainability research, including the flow of scientific activity, as well as the collaboration or impact that such research generates. This doctoral study explores how can sustainability can be delineated from a bibliometric approach, leading to a new approach of “sustainability science”. The scientific production of articles was identified and analysed for the period 2008–2017 using the Web of Science (WoS). Moreover, this research study explores HEIs and their role in fostering sustainability, by assessing their research and the implementation of sustainability practices in Spanish HEIs. As well, it presents a delineation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and proposes a methodology for classifying the output on each SDG. This analysis is done through unidimensional and multidimensional bibliometric indicators. These indicators have been divided and analysed in different levels of aggregation, from the most general to the most specific, starting with general research features and progressing to country, institutional, and thematic levels, among others. The results indicate a growing interest in sustainability research and a strong influence on the environmental pillar. Moreover, some countries with the highest scientific output are not as specialized in terms of topics as others with a lower output. Regarding institutions, the results obtained indicate that HEIs made an important research contribution to SD and are the ones that produce a higher number of documents. It was found that institutions tend to collaborate with other institutions that are close. By analysing sustainability practices in Spanish HEIs, it was found that there are more associations between variables such as having a sustainability plan and having a green office. However, this study clearly demonstrates that although SD is recognized as being very important to HEIs and society, it is not yet embedded in the whole system’s strategies, activities, and policies. In conclusion, this research study reveals that it is essential to identify sustainability strategies and introduce SD in all activities in the HEI environment. Finally, this thesis contributes to the literature on sustainable HEIs, as well as to how higher education for SD is understood and can be improved, especially in the Spanish higher education system. Moreover, this contributes to bibliometric study by offering two delineation approach to sustainability science and sustainable development goals as well as methodologies for classifying scientific output. This denotes the importante of bibliometric studies for the study and characterization of scientific output in a transdisciplinary field that can be extrapolated to other fields of study.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) have become the international framework for sustainability policy. Its legacy is linked with the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), established in 2000. In this paper a scientometric analysis was conducted to: (1) Present a new methodological approach to identify the research output related to both SDGs and MDGs (M&SDGs) from 2000 to 2017, with the aim of mapping the global research related to M&SDGs; (2) Describe the thematic specialization based on keyword co-occurrence analysis and citation bursts; and (3) Classify the scientific output into individual SDGs (based on an ad-hoc glossary) and assess SDGs interconnections. Publications conceptually related to M&SDGs (defined by the set of M&SDG core publications and a scientometric expansion based on direct citations) were identified in the in-house CWTS Web of Science database. A total of 25,299 publications were analyzed, of which 21,653 (85.59%) were authored by Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) or academic research centers (RCs). The findings reveal the increasing participation of these organizations in this research (660 institutions in 2000–2005 to 1,744 institutions involved in 2012–2017). Some institutions present both a high production and specialization on M&SDG topics (e.g., London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and World Health Organization); and others with a very high specialization although lower production levels (e.g., Stockholm Environment Institute). Regarding the specific topics of research, health (especially in developing countries), women, and socio-economic issues are the most salient. Moreover, it has been observed an important interlinkage in the research outputs of some SDGs (e.g., SDG11 “Sustainable Cities and Communities” and SDG3 “Good Health and Well-Being”). This study provides first evidence of such interconnections, and the results of this study could be useful for policymakers in order to promote a more evidenced-based setting for their research agendas on SDGs.

Sustainable development and sustainability have appeared as concepts to help address the economic,environmental, and social impacts from previous generations, on this generation, and future ones through a holistic perspective. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have become the international framework for sustainability policy. The 17 SDGs and 169 targets were agreed upon by the 193 member states of the UN in2015 and are to be achieved by 2030. It should be noted that the SDGs were designed by governments for governments. These are based on the principles of: (1) a statement of a social-political priority (goal), (2) a time-bound quantitative aspect to be achieved (target), and (3) the measurement to monitor its progress(indicator). Since the SDGs (i.e. the macro level) are fairly new there is very limited research yet on how organisations (i.e. the micro level) contribute to them, or how such contributions could be advanced.Organisations civil society; companies; and public sector organisations (PSOs) have been instrumental in driving sustainability. In the last lustrum, there has been an increasing interest in organisational sustainability, where the importance of sustainability’s dimensions depends on an organisation’s nature and purpose. The contributions of organisations to sustainability, and by implication to the SDGs, have been proposed by a number of authors,where the most complete definition states that: such contributions entail the continuous incorporation and integration of sustainability issues in the organisation’s system elements (operations and production, strategy and management, governance, organisational systems, service provision, and assessment and reporting), as well as change processes and their rate of change. In this research, we will present some case studies of organisations contributing to the SDGs. The research group is an international leader and responsible for several publications in the field of sustainability, organizational change management, sustainable business models, sustainability assessment and reporting, circular economy, collaboration for sustainability, or education for sustainable development, among others. The multidisciplinary character of the group is a strength that defines our priority research area, mainly focused on sustainability. In this regard, case studies such as the contribution of HigherEducation Institutions to the SDGs or organizational change management in companies will be presented. The results presented will further the discussions on how organisations contribute to the SDGs, and how the micro and macro-level can be better connected.

Public participation is crucial for policy-making and can contribute to strengthening democracies and decision-making. Public participation can help to address sustainability challenges and plays a key role in attaining the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). While the SDGs are policy concepts, there has been limited research conducted on how the public perceives the SDGs. Public participation in scientific research has been carried out through citizen science (CS). This paper analyzes the public's perception of the SDGs through CS and how the public can participate in their implementation. The paper uses the OSDG community platform, a citizen science platform with >2000 participants, to analyze public perception of the SDGs. A set of 40,062 excerpts of text (v2023-01-01), a topic modeling and agreement scores by using CorTexT Manager software, was analyzed. The results show that some SDGs, e.g. health (SDG3) or life below water (SDG14), have higher levels of agreement from the public, whilst for other SDGs the public disagree on their perception, (e.g. zero hunger). The paper shows that issues affecting citizens' daily lives (e.g. in People related goals) tend to have a higher level of agreement among volunteers, while economic issues and directives have greater discrepancies. The results provide an overview of the differences in public perception on the SDGs and their implementation. The misperceptions regarding the SDGs should be reduced to achieve a better implementation, improve public participation, and help policy-making processes.

Urban resilience is an emergent concept that is receiving an increasing attention. Its definition is linked with the ability of an urban system to resist, maintain continuity and recover through all stresses while adapting and transforming towards sustainability. The aim of this study is two-fold. First, we analyse the research output on urban resilience using bibliometric techniques and Web of Science (WoS) in order to define the scope and identify topics in the urban resilience literature. CiteSpace software is used to establish the intellectual framework. Second, their contribution to sustainability dimensions and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) based on the research output is explored.

For that purpose, we examined 1014 publications during the period 1998–2020. The findings reveal urban resilience literature has grown since the 2009.A specialization in recent years from more theoretical research to a more practical is identified. In terms of contribution towards sustainability, the findings show the number of publications that directly address sustainability is scarce and more balanced to environmental and social perspectives. These findings can provide a better understanding of the patterns and trends in the field and provides first evidence of the contribution of academic research on urban resilience to sustainability.

Sustainability has become a global concern in the 21st century. However, sustainability is an ambivalent concept that can be interpreted in many ways. In the beginning, it was environmentally-related. Later, however, it was linked to social or economic sustainability, which was known as the triple bottom-line or the three-pillar model (social/economic and environmental sustainability). Later, additional dimensions were incorporated, such as institutional, cultural, or even spatial. As a result of the growth and importance of sustainability, this study provides a comprehensive overview of the core of sustainability. With that aim in mind, we will analyse the following aspects of scientific production: volume of scientific output, primary agents involved (countries, institutions), web of science (WoS) categories, collaborations, acknowledgement patterns, and thematic analysis. The findings in this paper suggest an increasing growth in scientific output in all areas of sustainability, albeit with different patterns (e.g., collaboration, specialisation) among the three pillars.

Sustainable Development Goals have emerged as a global strategy to ensure a better and sustainable future for all, balancing the economic, social, and environmental development. These goals represent a long-term perspective that needs to be embedded in the decision-making of governments, businesses and society. Therefore, science, technology and innovation has been recognized as one of the main drivers for shifting to a sustainable path. However, its contribution to sustainable goals remains a complex and unresolved debate.  

Therefore, the aim of this study is twofold. It aims to analyze the (mis)alignment of research in HEIS towards sustainable goals, as well as to analyze the interlinkage among the 17 goals. We examined the research papers from ten universities that compose the Young Universities for the Future of Europe (YUFE) Network. We analyzed 78,241 papers from the Web of Science during the period 2015-2019. We present a novel approach by using an open-source tool called OSDG, which combines an ontology-based approach from previous projects and then matches to the fields of study from Microsoft Academic. Sixty-eight percent of the papers were assigned to, at least, one goal. 

The findings reveal the increasing participation of the institutions of this network in this research. We find that the goals more frequently addressed are related to Health, Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure, and Climate Change. We also compare this information with the targets and indicators on each goal to assess the similarity. These preliminary results can provide a better understanding of the research contribution to sustainable goals.

Sustainability science is, per se, a topic that is inherently interdisciplinarity and orientedtowards the resolution of societal problems. In this paper, we propose a classifcation ofscientifc journals that composes the journal category “Green and Sustainable Science andTechnology” in the period 2014–2018 through the entropy-based disciplinarity indicator(EBDI). This indicator allows the classifcation of scientifc journals in four types based onthe citing and cited dimensions: knowledge importer, knowledge exporter, disciplinary andinterdisciplinarity. Moreover, the relationship between this taxonomy and the JCR bibliometric indicators and its predictive capacity of the taxonomy is explored through a CHAIDtree. As well, relations between the Web of Science categories, journals and taxonomy areexplored by the co-occurrence of categories and correspondence analysis. Results suggestthat the great majority of journals in this feld are specialized or interdisciplinary. However,over the 5-year period proposed in this study, interdisciplinary journals tend to be far morestable than specialized ones. The decision tree has shown that the number of citations is thevariable with the greatest discriminating capacity.

Sustainability has been proposed to address societal challenges. A number of efforts have been undertaken to implement sustainability, particularly through frameworks such as tools, initiatives and approaches (TIAs). Most of the research on the implementation efforts has been in the corporate context. This paper is aimed at analysing the implementation of TIAs in academic research. A bibliometric analysis of twenty TIAs during the period 1961–2020 was carried out to analyse their implementation in academic research. The results highlight that there has been research published on all the TIAs analysed. The TIAs have a better balance and interrelations between the sustainability dimensions in their implementation than in the theory. The results show that for a better implementation of TIAs in academic research it is necessary to address sustainability dimensions (economic, environmental, social, and time) in a holistic and balanced way considering alignment of general and specific efforts, i.e. TIAs, and congruence (linking ‘theory’ and ‘implementation’). The results were integrated to propose a ‘Sustainability Implementation Framework’ (SIF), which is divided into three levels (i.e., Initiatives, Approaches, and Tools). The TIAs implementation should follow more strictly the definitions, or, perhaps, the TIAs definitions should be redefined to encompass the insights from their implementation.

There is a growing interest in determining the factors that influence a journal’s flipping to Open Access (OA). Using semi-structured interviews combined with bibliometric indicators, this paper uncovers the perception of Spanish managers related to OA and the decision to flip. The key research questions are twofold: How well do bibliometric measures reflect the changes in the status of the journal? How do journal managers perceive the flipping process? In order to answer these, twelve semi-structured interviews were conducted with journal managers of Spanish Journals. The findings suggest the great majority of managers are aware of the indicators, but only two considered they reflect their reality. The results indicate as the main motivations to flip to OA: being imposed by the host institution, economic reasons, and increase visibility and internationalization. An increase in the number of submissions, visibility, or internationalization since the transition is perceived as a benefit while the loss of interchanges with other institutions is seen as the major drawback. Although flipping to OA is perceived by the managers to have many advantages, it raises some challenges too, especially the need for funding, lack of resources capacity for technical support, and the creation of alliances.

There is a growing interest in determining the factors that influence a journal's flipping to Open Access (OA). Using semi-structured interviews combined with bibliometric indicators, this paper uncovers the perception of Spanish managers related to Open Access and the decision to flip. The key research questions are twofold: How well do bibliometric measures reflect the changes in the status of the journal? How do journal managers perceive the flipping process? In order to answer these, twelve semi-structured interviews were conducted with journal managers of Spanish Journals. The findings suggest the great majority of managers are aware of the indicators, but only two mentioned they reflect their reality. An increase in the number of submissions, visibility, or internationalization since the transition is perceived as a benefit while the loss of interchanges with other institutions is seen as the major drawback. Although flipping to OA is perceived by the managers to have many advantages, it raises some challenges too, especially the need for funding, lack of resources capacity for technical support, and the creation of alliances.

Purpose

This study aims to analyse and evaluate the methodology followed by the Times Higher Education Impact Rankings (THE-IR), as well as the coverage obtained and the data offered by this ranking, to determine if its methodology reflects the degree of sustainability of universities, and whether their results are accurate enough to be used as a data source for research and strategic decision-making.

Design/methodology/approach

A summative content analysis of the THE-IR methodology was conducted, paying special attention to the macro-structure (university score) and micro-structure (sustainable development goals [SDG] score) levels of the research-related metrics. Then, the data published by THE-IR in the 2019, 2020 and 2021 edition was collected via web scraping. After that, all the data was statistically analysed to find out performance rates, SDGs’ success rates and geographic distributions. Finally, a pairwise comparison of the THE-IR against the Times Higher Education World University Rankings (THE-WUR) was conducted to calculate overlap measures.

Findings

Severe inconsistencies in the THE-IR methodology have been found, offering a distorted view of sustainability in higher education institutions, allowing different strategic actions to participate in the ranking (interested, strategic, committed and outperformer universities). The observed growing number of universities from developing countries and the absence of world-class universities reflect an opportunity for less-esteemed institutions, which might have a chance to gain reputation based on their efforts towards sustainability, but from a flawed ranking which should be avoided for decision-making.

Practical implications

University managers can be aware of the THE-IR validity when demanding informed decisions. University ranking researchers and practitioners can access a detailed analysis of the THE-IR to determine its properties as a ranking and use raw data from THE-IR in other studies or reports. Policy makers can use the main findings of this work to avoid misinterpretations when developing public policies related to the evaluation of the contribution of universities to the SDGs. Otherwise, these results can help the ranking publisher to improve some of the inconsistencies found in this study.

Social implications

Given the global audience of the THE-IR, this work contributes to minimising the distorted vision that the THE-IR projects about sustainability in higher education institutions, and alerts governments, higher education bodies and policy makers to take precautions when making decisions based on this ranking.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this contribution is the first providing an analysis of the THE-IR’s methodology. The faults in the methodology, the coverage at the country-level and the overlap between THE-IR and THE-WUR have unveiled the existence of specific strategies in the participation of universities, of interest both for experts in university rankings and SDGs.

Higher education institutions have been steadily progressing towards the integration of sustainable practices in their university system. Consequently, an increasing number of these institutions have recognized their responsibility and are incorporating sustainability into their operations, and practices, following a holistic approach. Despite these efforts in the implementation, there are still many challenges to pursue sustainability. In the Spanish framework, there is a lack of studies that investigate sustainable development in higher education by considering all the dimensions. Especially, the efforts of the Spanish Universities in research have been scarcely analysed in detail. This study analyze how Spanish Public and Private Universities (SUE) are integrating sustainability into their institutions by the following dimensions: Research (based on a search strategy proposed by considering the social, economic and environmental perspective); Internationalization (participation in GreenMetrics ranking and European Framework projects), University Governance (Strategic Plans); Assessment and Reporting (Sustainability Plans) and Campus Operations (Green offices).

The findings reveal that some institutions present a higher production of scientific activity on the topic (e.g. UAB), while others with less production are more specialized (e.g. UA). The commitment of the universities has increased over time but it varies greatly among different kind of universities, especially in favour of the public institutions. By analyzing the correlation between sustainability practice, it was found that there are high association between some of the variables i.e. sustainability plan and having a green office. However, this study clearly demonstrates that although SD is recognized as being very important to HEIs and society, it is not yet embedded in the whole system’s strategies, activities, and policies.

Circular economy (CE) has become fundamental in accelerating the efforts towards sustainability. CE was first proposed by Leontief in 1928, as way to understand causal relationships in the economic dimension. Recently, CE has mainly focused on environmental issues i.e. closing the material cycle through recovery (3Rs to 9Rs). Literature on this topic has increased over time and a number of bibliometric studies have been carried out. However, the majority of these studies used bibliometric indicators focusing on descriptive analyses of scientific outputs, particularly on yearly trend, keyword co-occurrence, and/or coauthorship.

This article adopts a combination of a nested approach, with grounded theory's constant comparative analysis as the overall analysis method and a bibliometric analysis within it. A total of 4,045 documents from CE during the period 1999–2019 were retrieved and analysed against an initial framework composed by different levels (economic issues, recovery and CE levels). The iterative process helped to improve the economic category, changing the level category into a scope one, and adding two new categories (scientific collaboration and themes). The results obtained were integrated to propose the holistic and panoptic framework for analysing circular economy for analysing circular economy, which consists of the integration and interconnection of three main components: (1) economy, with cost, productivity, distribution, value creation, and value added; (2) recovery loops from the 3Rs to the 9Rs; and (3) the scope of CE activities, including assessment, review, individual, organisation, process, sector, cluster, and country/region. In addition, assessment and review are transversal categories within scope.

This paper provides depth to the understanding of the economic, environmental and scope interlinkages of CE literature, so as to better position the CE theory and practice and to detect gaps that should be addressed. Moreover, the study highlights the importance for CE to achieve its potential in helping societies become more sustainable. Thus, theory and practice must take a holistic approach that integrates the economic and environmental dimensions, the scope of CE, and collaboration.

This research is linked to SDG12 Responsible Production and Consumption, 12.5 (By 2030, substantially reduce waste generation through prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse); target 12.6 (Encourage companies, especially large and transnational companies, to adopt sustainable practices and to integrate sustainability information into their reporting cycle), and 12.a (Support developing countries to strengthen their scientific and technological capacity to move towards more sustainable patterns of consumption and production).

This study contributes to accelerating progress towards SDGs, as more research of CE is needed to examine how corporations can enhance their adaptive capacity, so they can meet sustainability and their company's needs in times of crisis. 

Higher education institutions (HEIs) have been at the forefront in creating and breaking paradigms, and educating the future decision-makers, entrepreneurs, and leaders. In the last decade, there have been many efforts to develop sustainability competences in HEIs to ensure that students are prepared for challenges in making societies more sustainable. Recent discourses have focussed on how educators use pedagogical approaches to develop such competences, which has begun to create a sustainability competences paradigm. This research focuses on the benefits and challenges of teaching sustainability, the use of pedagogical approaches, and the developmentof competences. A survey was sent to 4099 European HEI educators, with 319 full responses obtained for the open-ended questions. The data was analysed using quantitative content analysis and network analysis. The results provide insights into the rankings of the benefits, and challenges in teaching, competences, and pedagogical approaches. The co-occurrence maps show a high students' awareness and engagement when educators use pedagogical approaches other than lecturing, and they focus on providing a practice-oriented perspective. The research discusses that in order to develop a sustainability competences paradigm the benefits of teaching sustainability, using pedagogical approaches, and development of competences need to be fostered, whereas the challenges need to be addressed to avoid creating a White Elephant. The development of sustainability competences in HEI can lead to more sustainability literate decision-makers, leaders, scientists, and professionals, and thus, better address the pressing challenges that ail our societies and Earth.

Circular economy (CE) has been proposed as a concept to help address sustainability issues. CE was first proposed in 1928 as a way of understanding causal relationships in the economic sphere. Recently, CE has been focused, mainly, on environmental issues main typically represented by closing material loops through recovery. Literature on CE has been increasing during this time, where a number of bibliometric analyses have been carried out with, mainly, descriptive outputs. This paper uses a nested approach, with grounded theory's constant comparative analysis as the overarching one and bibliometric analyses within it. A total of 4,045 documents from CE during the period 1999–2019 were analysed against an initial framework composed of economic issues, recovery and CE levels. The results helped to improve the economic category, to change the level category into a scope one and to add two categories (collaboration and themes). The results were then integrated to propose the holistic and panoptic framework for analysing circular economy, which can help to understand the economic, environmental and scope interlinkages of CE literature, in order to better position CE theory and practice and to detect gaps that should be addressed. For CE to achieve its potential in helping societies become more sustainable, theory and practice must take a holistic approach that integrates the economic and environmental dimensions, the scope of CE, and collaboration.

Research fronts (RFs) represent the most dynamic areas of science and technology and the topics that receive higher attention in a specific field. Their identification has become the focus of global scientific and technological competition. In this study, we performed an analysis of the In-Cites research fronts in a case study for the scientific output of the Carlos III University of Madrid. This research in progress has two objectives: a) to quantify the alignment of the research output of UC3M in the different fields with the RF and b) to test if papers aligned with RFs receive more citations per document than those not aligned. The ultimate goal of this research is to assess the usefulness of RFs as an orientation for the establishment of research priorities at the institutional level for the university.

Research fronts (RFs) represent the most dynamic areas of science and technology and the topics that receive higher attention in a specific field. Their identification has become the focus of global scientific and technological competition. In this study, we performed an analysis of the In-Cites RFs from Web of Science (WoS) in seven Spanish universities as a case study in the period 2015–2019. Our purpose is threefold: (1) to develop a methodology for approximating the ‘alignment’ of scientific articles with the RFs, (2) to test if Highly Cited Papers (HCP) from these universities are more aligned with RFs than the rest of the output, and (3) to test if papers aligned with RFs receive more citations per document than those not aligned. The study uses a novel retrieval method, and the analysis is conducted using a coincidence method (comparison with a standard), in which Mann–Kendall’s test and Pearson’s correlation are used. The results show that there is alignment between output and the HCP and those better aligned, present greater mean ranks of citations per article. This study shows the usefulness of RFs for orienting the research priorities at the institutional level for the university.