Quantifying the Trends of DST-funded Environmental Science Research in India

A Scientometric Approach

Abstract

The primary aim of the study is to analyse the Indian research outputs in the field of Environmental Science funded by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), India. The study focused on unveiling the publication trend, publication type, preferred publication sources, and research themes. The study also aimed to trace the leading authors, organisations, and collaborating nations. A total number of 8938 Indian documents in the field of Environmental Science funded by DST were found to be indexed in the Scopus database. The bibliographic records extracted in BibTeX format were analysed using the Biblioshiny. The study found a rapid growth in publications from 2018 to 2023. Findings also reveal that 88.55 % of documents were articles; and “Environmental Science and Pollution Research” was the top publication source with 387 articles. The study reported that the organisations “Academy of Scientific and Innovation Research”, “IIT Kharagpur”, and “IIT Delhi” were found to be the most productive as well as most collaborative organisations. The study revealed that India mostly collaborated with the US, Korea, and China to publish the research outputs in the field of Environmental Science funded by DST. Keyword analysis revealed that the themes such as toxicity, adsorption, kinetics, biodegradation, and bioremediation have a high degree of density and centrality, which indicates most of the studies funded by DST are related to these themes. This study provides a comprehensive overview, research trends, and future direction of the field. The findings can help researchers, to know the publication trend, prolific authors, organisations, publication sources, and emerging and declining themes in the field of Environmental Science funded by DST.