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Searching the Scientific Literature

Literature of science.

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Introduction

Scientific literature is the principal medium for communicating the results of scientific research and, as such, represents the permanent record of the collective achievements of the scientific community over time. This scientific knowledge base is composed of the individual "end products" of scientific research and discovery and continues to grow as new research builds on earlier research. This new research may add to, substantiate, modify, refine or refute existing knowledge on a specific topic. As a cycle new research and discovery in the laboratory or field is dependent on the existing scientific knowledge base which, in turn, becomes valuable when the new research is incorporated into the scientific knowledge base.

Scientific literature composing the scientific knowledge base is often divided into two basic categories:

• Primary literature -- publications that report the results of  original  scientific research. These include journal papers, conference papers, monographic series, technical reports, theses, and dissertations.
• Secondary literature -- publications that synthesize and condense what is known on specific topics. These include reviews, monographs, textbooks, treatises, handbooks, and manuals. These take time to produce and usually cite key "primary" publications on the topic.

Scientific Research/Publication Cycle

The following chart illustrates common steps involved in the scientific research process (inner circle), the dissemination of research results through the primary and secondary literature (outer circle), and the personal assimilation of this information resulting in new ideas and research (inner circle):

Scientific Journals, Magazines and Series

Scientific serials can be grouped into the following three categories.  Journals - Scholarly or Popular?  summarizes the differences between different types of journals and popular magazines.

Journal papers are the basic "molecular" unit of scientific knowledge base and are the most important "primary" source in the sciences. More than  80%  of the scientific research literature is published in this format. Annually 1.5 million articles are published in over 25,000 peer reviewed journals. Cumulatively there have been more than 50 million peer reviewed papers published since the first scientific journal was published in  1665 .

• Magazines and Newsletters  -- Articles appearing in these publications tend to be popular in format and scope. They may contain news and perspectives of professional societies and environmental organizations, report on research published in scholarly journals, report on environmental problems and new political initiatives, or contain articles aimed at the layperson.
• They are published by government agencies, universities or professional organizations. See  Natural Resources Agency Government Documents and Reports  for additional information.
• The  series has a distinctive name. Typical names include  Bulletin ,  Special Report ,  Special Paper , Technical Report , and  Technical Paper .
• Individual issues are consecutively numbered, e.g. Technical Paper No. 36.
• Each issue has a distinctive author and title.
• There is no regular publication schedule.

A typical example is:

Wheeler, W.E., R.C. Gatti, & G.A. Bartlett.(a) 1984.  Duck Breeding, Ecology and Harvest Characteristics on Grand River Marsh Wildlife Area .(b) Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources(c) Technical Bulletin(d) No. 145(e). where a=individual author; b=individual title; c=series author; d=series title; e=series number

To Find Individual Papers:  Use databases listed in  Articles and Databases  to find individual papers published in scientific journals, magazines and series. Databases typically can be searched by subject, taxonomic category, habitat, time period, chemical substance, geographic area or author. In addition the websites of many journal and magazine publishers contain searchable databases of articles published in their publications.

To Find Print and Fulltext Availability:  See the  Journal and Newspaper Finder  for specific holdings and available formats of journal, magazine and series titles available through the HSU Library. Enter the title of the publication, not the article title. In addition some series are cataloged by individual author and title in the  HSU Library Catalog . In addition directories listed in  Fulltext Journal Directories  include some fulltext journals that are not in our  Journal and Newspaper Finder .

To Find Abbrevations of Scientific Publications:  Many scientific journal and series titles are abbreviated in the literature.  Journal Title Abbreviations  lists both general abbreviation sources and more specific discipline sources in the sciences.

To Find Important Journals by Subject:  See  Journal-Ranking.com ,  Journals Ranked by Impact  (Sci-Bytes), SCImago Journal & Country Rank  and  Eigenfactor.org - Ranking and Mapping Scientific Knowledge .

Conference Papers

Papers presented at national and international conferences, symposia, and workshops are another source of "primary" scientific information . For many conferences the presented papers are eventually published in a "proceedings" or "transactions" volume. Papers with no published proceedings may be refined and reworked for formal publication in a journal. Proceedings available in the HSU Library are listed in the  HSU Library Catalog under both author (generally the name of the conference, individual editor or sponsoring organization) and title.

Many discipline databases included in  Articles and Databases  index individual conference papers by subject, taxonomic, geographic, and author. The  Conference Papers Index  and  PapersFirst  databases only index conference papers.

Theses and Dissertations

The outcome of graduate study conducted at universities is commonly a master's thesis or doctoral dissertation. In addition to the formal thesis or dissertation, research results are often communicated in other "primary" literature formats, such as the journal paper.

See  Theses and Dissertations  for how to find and acquire 1) HSU masters theses; and 2) theses and dissertations produced at other universities that are available in other libraries and on the Internet.

Scientific Monographs

Scientific monographs are book length works written by specialists for the benefit of other specialists. As defined by the  National Research Council  they attempt to "...collect, collate, analyze, integrate, and synthesize all relevant contributions to the archival literature of the scientific and engineering journals and to add original material as required". They are different from textbooks which are pedagogical works and scientific popularizations for the general public.

Monographs are listed in the  HSU Library Catalog  and in  other library catalogs .

Government Documents and Technical Reports

Scientists at federal and state government agencies conduct research that is sometimes published officially  by the government as a  government document . Other research is published in the "open" scientific literature as journal articles and other publications.

The HSU Library is an official " depository library " for federal and state govenment documents and annually receives approximately 6,000 government documents in either paper or microfiche format. In addition 80% of all recently published federal publications are available on the Internet.

Research projects conducted  for  government agencies are frequently published as  technical reports . They are usually produced in response to a specific information need with research either 1) conducted "in-house" by state or federal research labs, or 2) contracted out to universities, consulting firms, research institutes, or private industry.

Progress and final reports typically are used directly by the sponsoring agency with limited distribution beyond the organization. As a result technical report literature is sometimes called "gray literature" because of its difficulty to identify and acquire.

The format of technical reports is more flexible in organization and tends to contain more of the scientific data collected. Research first reported in a technical report may be reworked and published in other "primary" literature formats.

The  Natural Resources Agency Government Documents and Technical Reports  research guide contains further information on govenment documents and technical reports issued by federal and California State agencies, including their organization in the HSU Library and indexes to their content. The focus is on agencies responsible for managing and conducting research in natural resources.

Scientific Data

Scientific data are numerical quantities or other factual attributes derived from observation, experimentation or calculation. They are the raw material and the building block for scientific research. Through data analysis and interpretation new scientific information is generated.

The archiving of data collected and used in scientific research is important for future replication, repurposing based on new ideas or exploration of new analysis methodologies. Many funding agenices and scientific journals require authors of scientific papers to archive and share data utilized in their studies.

Data repositories archive and make data available to the scientific community. They may contain 1) data that has been collected as part of massive mission-oriented projects, e.g., atmospheric, hydrological, or oceanographic, or genomic; or 2) original data or data extracted from larger datasets that are associated with specifc published research studies.

Following are major directories of data repositories:

• Data.gov  (United States Government) Browse or search for datasets available from US government executive agencies.
• Data Files  (Association of College and Research Libraries. Science and Technology Section) Lists federal, state and foreign goverment data repository directories.
• DataCite  (British Library, BioMed Central and Digital Curation Centre) Arranged alphabetically.
• Global Change Master Directory  (Goddard Space Flight Center) Browse by broad subject area or search by keyword.
• Open Access Directory: Data Repositories  (Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Simmons College) Arranged by broad subject.
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Research Help

How to read and learn from scientific literature, even if you’re not an expert

Vice President of the Academy of Science of South Africa and DST-NRF SARChI chair in Fungal Genomics, Professor of Genetics, University of Pretoria

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Brenda Wingfield receives funding from NRF and DST. She works for the University of Pretoria and her research is done in FABI. She is vice president of ASSAf and holds a research chair in Fungal Genomics.

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Reading scientific literature is not for the faint-hearted. It’s dense, and very often full of foreign terms and ideas.

It also assumes a basic understanding of the discipline in question. I can’t imagine that many people outside the world of theoretical physics are reading journal articles on the subject. That makes sense: research has found that scientific literature across disciplines is getting more complicated .

But as more and more journals embrace the principles of open access , and more information becomes freely available online, curious readers are probably more likely to start engaging with scientific literature. That’s a good thing. Research shouldn’t be regarded as a closely kept secret for a small number of people. In a world full of half truths, simplistic and misleading summaries, and outright “fake news”, being able to read and engage with scientific literature can be a powerful weapon.

Of course, you can also seek out examples of scientists writing for the public. But be wary: not all scientists are willing to do this; we are, on the whole, very picky about details and don’t like generalisations. So try to engage with scientific literature where you can: it will be hard work in the beginning if you have no scientific background, but it’s a skill that can be developed.

So, if you’d like to start reading more scientific literature, here are a few tips to improve your experience. I’m focusing largely on the life sciences since that’s my area of expertise.

Making sense of articles

Science is about asking and answering questions. Scientific articles are the way in which scientists communicate their results to their peers. Here’s how to navigate those articles.

Choose journals that publish good science:

“Good science” is rigorous, verifiable and rooted in a broader body of research. There are however, an increasing number of scientific journals available. Some have better credentials than others; often, these are linked to reputable scientific societies. For instance, the South African Journal of Botany is the journal of the South African Association of Botanists.

Only people with a four-year degree who are active in the field can be members of the society. The same sort of rigour is applied to who can publish in the journal.

When journals aren’t linked to societies, you can look at their editors’ credentials. Reputable scientists are unlikely to allow their names to be linked to fraudulent or predatory (those that charge a fee to publish articles, without any review or editing) journals.

These are not reputable, and do not publish robust, good science.

Also, don’t be fooled by people’s titles. I would hope that no one would consult me about heart surgery but I sometimes see adverts where a “doctor” has endorsed a product – often one that has nothing to do with their field of expertise.

Start with the abstract for a broad overview:

It’s expensive to subscribe to most journals or to buy entire articles online. But even limited access journals usually supply the abstract for free. This summarises the article and usually gives the major findings. You can then decide whether you want more details and are prepared to buy the article, if it’s not open access, or to keep reading if it is.

And then continue in a chronological fashion:

Most articles have an introduction which introduces the topic and sets the scene. It usually includes a statement as to the aim of the study – essentially, the question that the authors set out to answer. It also provides references to previous literature, which could be useful to understanding the topic. There will references throughout the article; this is a way of ensuring that all statements are substantiated with reference to the published literature.

The next section of an article is usually followed by the materials and methods (although in some journals this might be relegated to the end of the article). Here, the authors will provide details about the methodology used in their experiments. This is where things can get very technical, but you will also see constant reference to other research that has been published using the same or similar methods if you want to get a better understanding of the methods.

Then comes the results section, which outlines the results yielded by the experiments. This, too, is likely to be very technical but is also where the details are provided.

The last section is the discussion, which provides the authors’ interpretation of the results. This is often what scientists read most carefully, since it’s where the authors “connect the dots”; they are also likely to provide a conclusion and suggest an answer to the question they were trying to answer.

Read widely

Once you’re finished reading one article on a topic, read some more. You should not ever just believe what is stated in a single article. Science is very repetitive and builds on the research that has come before, so researchers are often repeating others’ experiments. This is where the in text references come in handy. They provide a way for results from one laboratory to be checked and tested by others. So, to get the truth about a topic, read a number of articles about it.

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A typical scholarly, scientific journal article (aka “ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE” or “PRIMARY RESEARCH ARTICLE”) is PEER REVIEWED (more on this later), discusses the authors’ original research, offers thoughtful analysis of the results, and cites relevant papers from other authors that relate to the research.

A slightly different type of journal article (called a “REVIEW ARTICLE”) will not report on original research, but will outline the current state of research in a particular field, citing the appropriate literature and connecting the various pieces of research together. Review articles are generally peer reviewed.

Review articles and original research articles can often look the same at first glance, and most search engines or databases won’t tell you what type of an article it is. To tell them apart, you need to identify whether the authors are discussing their own research and experiments or someone else’s. Often, the “Materials and methods” section (aka “Experimental procedures” or something similar) will be your best clue. This section is occasionally stored online, separate from the article as a part of the “supplementary materials”.

If the authors are discussing research and experiments that they carried out, and giving you an outline of the experiment, it will be an original research article.

When you are searching for information on a research topic, you may also run across some other types of information. Shorter news articles (1-2 pages) may appear in some scientific and popular publications reporting on recent developments in a particular field, or reporting on a particular piece of research. These news articles are not peer reviewed, and are normally written by science journalists, not researchers. The news articles may be easier to read, but since they are normally one or two steps removed from the original research, a news article may not be the best source for your paper or project. However, news articles can lead you to a piece of original research, and can help you easily stay informed about recent research developments.

If you conduct your searches online, via Google, Yahoo or another popular search engine, you may find journal articles, but you may also come across other scientific information that can take many forms. Wikis, blogs and personal websites can often contain a lot of scientific information, but these resources are generally very far removed from the original research where the ideas were first developed. Each of these sources needs to be evaluated very carefully to determine if the information is credible, and these sources won’t be suitable for a research paper. There is a lot of great scientific information on the web, but there is also a lot of bad science, pseudo-science, and non-science-pretending-to-be-science available and distinguishing them can be tricky.

From "A Very Brief Introduction to the Scientific Literature," by Bonnie Swoger, September 12, 2014. Reprinted with permission. Text has been edited for brevity and clarity. Original text can be found on  her website .

Peer review is the process that allows scientists to trust the reliability of published journal articles. Here’s how it works:

• A scientist submits an article to a journal saying “please publish this article.”
• The journal finds 2 or 3 people who know a lot about the research topic, called REVIEWERS or REFEREES, and asks them to look at the article.
• The reviewers look at the article carefully. They check to see if the experiment is designed and conducted well, they look at the analysis of the data, they see whether the conclusions are justified by the data, and they make sure the article can be understood by other scientists. They also make a judgment about how “important” the article is. Some journals only accept really innovative and important research, other journals accept research that advances the field just a little bit.
• The reviewers say “yes, we should publish this article”, “no, we shouldn’t publish this article” or “if the author makes some changes, maybe we should publish this article”
• If the article is published, we can say that it has been PEER REVIEWED.

Scientists rely on their colleagues, the reviewers, to make sure that good science is given a wide audience and that not-so-good science stays out of the science journals. Because blogs, wikis and personal websites don’t automatically have this expert filter, you have to do a lot more digging to determine if the information is reliable.

The only way to tell if a journal article has been peer reviewed is to look for information about the journal itself, normally on the publishers website. Most databases won’t indicate if an article is peer reviewed or not.

From "A Very Brief Introduction to the Scientific Literature," by Bonnie Swoger, September 12, 2014. Reprinted with permission. Text has been edited for brevity and clarity. Original text can be found on  her website .

• Research articles (“original research articles” or “primary research articles”) – These are your standard scientific articles. Most often published in peer reviewed journals, primary research articles report on the findings of a scientists work. They will almost always include a description of how the research was done and what the results mean.
• Review articles – These can be easily confused with primary research articles. They are also published in peer reviewed journals, but seek to synthesize and summarize the work of a particular sub-field, rather than report on new results. Review articles will often lack a “Materials and Methods” section. 
• Editorials / Opinion / Commentary / Perspectives – An article expressing the authors view about a particular issue. This may be an issue of science policy, urging a particular research agenda, or even taking a side in a particular scientific dispute. These articles can be well researched and include a lot of citations to the peer reviewed literature, or simple items without citations. 
• Trade publication articles – Between the standard scholarly journals ( Nature ) and the popular publications ( Scientific American ) lie the Trade publications. These publications are often aimed at medical professionals or particular disciplines. Articles in these publications may be several pages long and include a few references, but they are usually summarizing research published in other publications or reporting on industry news. 
• News – Science news articles can be found in a wide variety of publications. Popular newspapers and magazines, trade publications and scholarly publications can all have science news articles. These articles often will refer to a recent study published as a primary research article.
• Technical Reports – Government agencies and NGO’s often do scientific work. The reports they produce are not often peer reviewed, but can be an important part of the scientific literature. Reports from the World Health Organization or the USGS can provide vital information to scientists. These reports can be found in scholarly databases and on the web, and are classified by some folks as gray literature (see below).
• Gray literature – The term “gray literature” largely refers to items that are distributed or published outside of the traditional journal and book publishers. It typically referred to items that could be difficult to find, although I believe this distinction is becoming less important as these items are now often discoverable in internet search engines.
• Books (including reference materials like handbooks and dictionaries) – Most scientific books cannot be considered ‘primary research’. In general, they describe and interpret the primary research published in the journal articles.  
• Dissertations / Thesis – These are the final products that result from research conducted for a PhD or a Masters degree. These items can often be very long, going into great detail about methods and with lots of appendices of data. While they undergo exhaustive review by academic advisers and committee members, they wouldn’t be considered “peer-reviewed”.

From "Types of Scientific Literature," by Bonnie Swoger, September 12, 2014. Reprinted with permission. Text has been edited for brevity and clarity. Original text can be found on  her website .

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Annotated primary scientific literature: A pedagogical tool for undergraduate courses

Affiliations Department of Biological Sciences, Florida International University, Miami, Florida, United States of America, STEM Transformation Institute, Florida International University, Miami, Florida, United States of America

* E-mail: [email protected]

• Matthew Kararo, 
• Melissa McCartney

Published: January 9, 2019

• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000103
• Reader Comments

Annotated primary scientific literature is a teaching and learning resource that provides scaffolding for undergraduate students acculturating to the authentic scientific practice of obtaining and evaluating information through the medium of primary scientific literature. Utilizing annotated primary scientific literature as an integrated pedagogical tool could enable more widespread use of primary scientific literature in undergraduate science classrooms with minimal disruption to existing syllabi. Research is ongoing to determine an optimal implementation protocol, with these preliminary iterations presented here serving as a first look at how students respond to annotated primary scientific literature. The undergraduate biology student participants in our study did not, in general, have an abundance of experience reading primary scientific literature; however, they found the annotations useful, especially for vocabulary and graph interpretation. We present here an implementation protocol for using annotated primary literature in the classroom that minimizes the use of valuable classroom time and requires no additional pedagogical training for instructors.

Citation: Kararo M, McCartney M (2019) Annotated primary scientific literature: A pedagogical tool for undergraduate courses. PLoS Biol 17(1): e3000103. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000103

Copyright: © 2019 Kararo, McCartney. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Funding: This research was supported through National Science Foundation Division of Undergraduate Education 1525596 (MM) and Florida International University College of Arts, Sciences & Education Postdoctoral Fellowship (MM and MK). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Abbreviations: CREATE, consider, read, elucidate the hypotheses, Analyze and interpret the data, and think of the next experiment; FIU, Florida International University; SitC, Science in the Classroom; STEM, science, technology, engineering, and math; TOSLS, Test of Scientific Literacy Skills

Provenance: Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

A major output of public research universities is primary scientific literature, in addition to educating students and conferring degrees. It is imperative for researchers and universities to increase the transparency and outreach of the primary research literature they produce. However, most primary scientific literature remains unknown and/or inaccessible to the public, because it is published in journals targeting academics in the same field and is often placed behind journal paywalls [ 1 ].

Public research universities also have a responsibility to produce scientifically literate graduates [ 2 , 3 ]. Many students graduate without an understanding of scientific practices and an acculturation to interpreting scientific communication, especially primary scientific literature [ 4 , 5 ]. One way to potentially improve scientific literacy overall and develop specific skills, such as interpreting scientific communication, is to incorporate primary scientific literature into the undergraduate curricula and provide pedagogical tools that may help bridge the divide between everyday language and the language used by experts [ 6 – 11 ].

The study of primary scientific literature as a pedagogical tool in undergraduate biology courses has led to innovative approaches. The most well-known of these may be the Consider, Read, Elucidate the hypotheses, Analyze and interpret the data, and Think of the next Experiment (CREATE) method, in which faculty redesign their existing courses around primary scientific literature in order to provide an intensive and comprehensive analysis of primary scientific literature for undergraduates [ 6 , 12 – 14 ]. Although this type of a semester-long innovative elective course provided student benefits, adding an entire course to a degree sequence may prove difficult and by definition, does not impact students that choose not to include them in an already credit-crunched plan of study. This credit-crunch is especially prevalent at institutions such as the one in this study, Florida International University (FIU), where any additional credit hours are charged at out-of-state tuition rates. Therefore, it would benefit biology education, and biology as a field of study, to develop innovative ways to utilize primary scientific literature as a pedagogical tool, ideally with a minimal impact to existing plans of study and time investment from course instructors.

A growing body of research shows that less-intensive interventions using primary scientific literature can be valuable and useful in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education, with the greatest amount of research happening at the undergraduate level. Programs include journal clubs, data and figure exploration, and tutorials on how to read primary scientific literature [ 15 – 17 ]. Assessment tools used to evaluate these interventions are equally as diverse, ranging from rubrics to validated surveys [ 18 , 19 ].

Annotated primary scientific literature

Annotated primary scientific literature is designed to help readers interpret complex science by overlaying additional information on a scientific research article. Preserving the original text and its context is what makes annotated primary scientific research literature unique from other genres that modify or rewrite the original text. This preservation is the key difference between annotated primary scientific literature and adapted primary literature, an approach that takes portions of primary scientific literature and rewrites the original content to turn them into pedagogical tools [ 20 ]. Science in the Classroom (SitC; www.scienceintheclassroom.org ) is a highly developed and sophisticated example of annotated primary scientific literature that we decided has potential for classroom pedagogical use.

SitC, a collection of freely available annotated papers, aims to make primary scientific research literature more accessible to students and educators. The repository of annotated primary scientific literature articles is accessible to educators and searchable by keyword, classified by topics, and grouped in collections. The process of reading and deconstructing scientific literature in undergraduate courses has been shown to result in students potentially gaining an understanding of scientific practices, such as how scientists design their experiments and present their results, essentially allowing students to experience the logic behind drawing conclusions from a set of data [ 6 , 7 , 12 – 14 ].

Annotated primary scientific literature uses the original text of research articles along with a “Learning Lens” overlay, designed to provide students tools to use for interpretation. The “Learning Lens” is used to selectively highlight different parts of the text and is composed of seven headings: Glossary, Previous work, Author's experiments, Conclusions, News and policy links, Connect to learning standards, and References and notes, which are color-coded to match the corresponding text of the research article. For example, an annotated glossary term, when clicked on, will produce a pop-up box containing the definition of the word ( Fig 1 ). Annotations contained within the “Learning Lens” have been designed to be at the reading comprehension level of a first-year undergraduate student, and ongoing evaluation efforts have provided evidence that this goal is being met [ 21 ].

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000103.g001

Annotated primary literature as a pedagogical tool

Annotations provide an educational scaffold that could help students become more comfortable with reading scientific papers. We propose annotated primary scientific literature as an example of a resource that can be incorporated into existing courses and provide scaffolding that may help undergraduate students develop skills necessary to read primary scientific literature while requiring a minimal time investment from instructors. Using annotated primary scientific literature as a pedagogical tool not only could potentially help universities develop scientifically literate graduates, but it may also broaden the impact of primary scientific research literature produced by faculty.

The previously mentioned pedagogical tools and curriculum transformations can require a substantial investment of time and effort from the university, faculty, and staff. Therefore, additional tools and opportunities should be considered in order to achieve a wider variety of complementary opportunities for teaching with authentic scientific practices and engaging students in reading primary scientific literature [ 22 ]. We hypothesize that the incorporation of annotated primary scientific literature in the classroom represents one of these opportunities.

In this pilot study, we had a goal of developing an implementation protocol that could incorporate annotated primary scientific literature into undergraduate courses with a minimal time investment for instructors and minimal disruption and alteration to existing courses and plans of study.

Implementation of annotated primary scientific literature

All data were collected in accordance with an approved FIU Institutional Review Board protocol #17–0398 and #17–0105. Our initial attempts to develop an implementation protocol for using annotated primary scientific literature as a pedagogical tool had the educational goal of introducing students to the “Learning Lens” annotations and observing how instructors and students used the tool. Initial attempts to incorporate annotated primary scientific literature focused on undergraduate biology courses at FIU, including General Biology II, Ecology, and Plant Life History. The implementation sessions were run iteratively during the same semester, ensuring that students did not overlap, and each class had only one implementation session. We describe two variations of our implementations here.

Students involved in the study self-reported their major, with 76% being biology majors. We did not collect any data on students’ prior knowledge of biology, but the majority of students in these classes are first- or second-year students.

We used the same annotated piece of primary scientific literature for all in-class activities described in this study: “Caffeine in floral nectar enhances a pollinator's memory of reward” ( https://tinyurl.com/k7m329g ). We chose an article that incorporated many different aspects of biology, including evolution, ecosystem interactions, basic botany, learning and memory, and animal behavior in a single study, making this paper applicable in a wide variety of undergraduate courses.

The objectives were to introduce undergraduate students to annotated primary scientific literature and collect baseline data on how students interacted with the annotations themselves. The first implementation involved a one-time intervention, connected to the student’s coursework, conducted by the researchers and began with an approximately 5-minute orientation to annotated primary scientific literature. This orientation included how to use the “Learning Lens” and a brief overview of the importance of primary scientific literature. Students were then given 20 minutes to read the selected piece of annotated primary scientific literature. At the 20-minute time point, a Qualtrics (online survey software; Provo, Utah and Seattle, Washington) link was provided, and if they were done reading, students could begin answering the feedback questionnaire. Students were given an additional 20 minutes to complete the questionnaire. Collecting and analyzing this first round of pilot data allowed for reflection on opportunities for iterative improvement.

In addition to the questionnaire data, feedback was collected through in-class activity observations conducted by the researchers. We kept detailed field notes indicating when students appeared on task, i.e., independently interacting with annotated primary scientific literature. We also noted when alternative tasks were observed, i.e., students checking email or social media, and when task completion appeared to have occurred. During the implementation, our in-class observations estimated an average time on task, i.e., interacting with annotated primary scientific literature, to be 10 minutes, because there was a noticeable increase in classroom noise after this time point. We confirmed this by using Adobe Analytics (Adobe, San Jose, California), which measures the time spent on a website by each user. We measured an average time spent on annotated primary scientific literature of 13 minutes. Due to limitations of Adobe Analytics, we are unable to collect individual data points and were limited to an aggregate average for the entire class. Note that the difference between the observed time spent on the activity and the digital measure can be explained by Adobe Analytics averaging all participants’ time spent on the article page.

The main student feedback was collected through a questionnaire containing both quantitative (content questions) and qualitative items (i.e., “what did you like about this activity?”). One of the key ideas we garnered from the qualitative data was that a one-time intervention was perceived by students as somewhat discordant when a connection between the article they read and the content they were covering at the time in their course was not made explicit by their course instructor ( Table 1 ).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000103.t001

When asked if the topic of the paper related to their course, students in this iteration gave feedback such as this activity was “only slightly relevant to the course,” and “no, we[‘re] studying plants” despite the article being explicitly about caffeine production by plants in order to attract pollinators. Additionally, we were uncertain that we had connected with the students as researchers in the same way as the instructor with whom the students had built a relationship.

Although some students may have not perceived a connection between the article content and their course content, in general, students found the annotations useful, especially regarding graphs and vocabulary interpretation. Examples of student responses can be seen in Table 2 .

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000103.t002

For our second iteration, we decided to address the issues of students feeling discordant by having the course instructors introduce the article and annotated primary scientific literature activity themselves. Additionally, we asked instructors to explicitly connect the annotated paper to current course content. With both of these procedures in place, the average time students engaged with the annotated article, as measured by Adobe Analytics, increased to 19 minutes ( Fig 2 ).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000103.g002

This new implementation, in which the instructor introduced the piece of annotated primary scientific literature and annotated primary scientific literature activity, not only appeared to increase the time that students engaged with the material, but it also removed the manpower requirement for the researchers to be present in every classroom in order to describe and implement the activity. This could allow for a more widespread implementation of annotated primary scientific literature as a pedagogical tool. It was also apparent that students introduced to the activity by their course instructor were more readily able to recognize the connections between reading primary scientific research literature and their course content, which can be seen in student responses in Table 3 .

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000103.t003

When asked if the topic of the paper related to their course, students in this iteration stated “This article related to 3 different courses I am taking this semester,” “yes it most certainly did,” “yes! We’re learning about pollination,” and that “…scientific papers on new experiments …are important.”

During the initial iterations of the implementation protocol, students read the annotated articles and completed an assessment during class time. However, a growing concern was feasibility of an in-class assignment due to the time requirement and allowing for instructor flexibility in scheduling. While observing a senior lecturer at FIU, who was not involved in this current study, and his existing implementation method of students reading primary scientific literature as homework and answering iClicker questions at the beginning of the following class, the researchers noticed an increased enthusiasm among the students during the class discussion. Supporting this observation, the history of research on the use of clickers in the classroom shows an increase in feelings of class involvement [ 23 ] and learning gains in students [ 24 ]. Because of the observations and support from instructors, the decision was made to adopt the homework protocol moving forward with future implementations. The homework protocol allows for more instructor freedom in selecting articles relevant to course content, reduces the class time required for implementation, and separates content questions from a pre–post attitude and motivation questionnaire. Using articles as homework also allows for instructors to utilize as many articles as they wish, but for this project moving forward, in future implementations, we will require a minimum of three articles over the course of a semester. We are currently piloting an implementation protocol using annotated primary scientific literature as a homework assignment and are excited to see how instructors and students use annotated primary scientific literature moving forward.

Advice to others

In the ongoing iterative development of an implementation protocol for annotated primary scientific literature, the most fruitful exercise has been reflection. This is great practice for any educator or educational researcher during the curriculum or pedagogical tool development process. Reflection on early classroom implementations helped us identify the opportunities for improvement in our subsequent protocol iterations and allowed us to make modifications based upon quantitative, qualitative, and observational data. One example of changes coming from reflection was noticing that during an implementation, students were opening the assessment without reading the article and using the “find” feature within the article to find answers to assessment questions. This led to preventing entry into the assessment until the time for reading had elapsed. Our subsequent classroom observations showed us that this forced students to interact with the article and be more thoughtful about their answers to the assessment, i.e., answers were not cut-and-pasted from the article text. We advise others to continue this practice of thoughtful reflection when using annotated primary scientific literature as a pedagogical tool. We also welcome any feedback or alternative uses of annotated primary scientific literature.

Future steps

The latest annotated primary scientific literature implementation protocol iteration is being pilot tested during fall 2018. Focusing more on robust evaluation now that implementation obstacles have been overcome will allow us to determine the effectiveness of annotated primary scientific literature as a pedagogical tool in undergraduate biology classrooms. Future studies are being designed to examine students’ scientific literacy before and after completing the annotated article activities using a previously validated scientific literacy instrument (Test of Scientific Literacy Skills [TOSLS]) [ 2 ]. Additionally, we aim to measure students’ subjective task values with regards to reading primary scientific research literature [ 25 – 28 ], as well as their primary scientific literature reading self-efficacy [ 29 – 32 ].

We hope to spread the word about annotated primary scientific literature and investigate its potential impacts on student learning and motivation as we further refine our implementation protocol and propagate beyond our department and institution.

Acknowledgments

We thank Beth Ruedi and Shelby Lake at AAAS, and Rebecca Vieyra for help editing this manuscript, our FIU colleagues Richard Brinn, Ligia Collado-Vides, Sat Gavassa, John Geiger, Camila Granados-Cifuentes, Zahra Hazari, Suzanne Koptur, and Sparkle Malone for providing us with class time, and all the participating students at FIU.

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• 32. Bandura A. Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. New York: Freeman; 1997.

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• How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

How to Write a Literature Review | Guide, Examples, & Templates

Published on January 2, 2023 by Shona McCombes . Revised on September 11, 2023.

What is a literature review? A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources on a specific topic. It provides an overview of current knowledge, allowing you to identify relevant theories, methods, and gaps in the existing research that you can later apply to your paper, thesis, or dissertation topic .

There are five key steps to writing a literature review:

• Search for relevant literature
• Evaluate sources
• Identify themes, debates, and gaps
• Outline the structure
• Write your literature review

A good literature review doesn’t just summarize sources—it analyzes, synthesizes , and critically evaluates to give a clear picture of the state of knowledge on the subject.

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Table of contents

What is the purpose of a literature review, examples of literature reviews, step 1 – search for relevant literature, step 2 – evaluate and select sources, step 3 – identify themes, debates, and gaps, step 4 – outline your literature review’s structure, step 5 – write your literature review, free lecture slides, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions, introduction.

• Quick Run-through
• Step 1 & 2

When you write a thesis , dissertation , or research paper , you will likely have to conduct a literature review to situate your research within existing knowledge. The literature review gives you a chance to:

• Demonstrate your familiarity with the topic and its scholarly context
• Develop a theoretical framework and methodology for your research
• Position your work in relation to other researchers and theorists
• Show how your research addresses a gap or contributes to a debate
• Evaluate the current state of research and demonstrate your knowledge of the scholarly debates around your topic.

Writing literature reviews is a particularly important skill if you want to apply for graduate school or pursue a career in research. We’ve written a step-by-step guide that you can follow below.

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Writing literature reviews can be quite challenging! A good starting point could be to look at some examples, depending on what kind of literature review you’d like to write.

• Example literature review #1: “Why Do People Migrate? A Review of the Theoretical Literature” ( Theoretical literature review about the development of economic migration theory from the 1950s to today.)
• Example literature review #2: “Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines” ( Methodological literature review about interdisciplinary knowledge acquisition and production.)
• Example literature review #3: “The Use of Technology in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Thematic literature review about the effects of technology on language acquisition.)
• Example literature review #4: “Learners’ Listening Comprehension Difficulties in English Language Learning: A Literature Review” ( Chronological literature review about how the concept of listening skills has changed over time.)

You can also check out our templates with literature review examples and sample outlines at the links below.

Download Word doc Download Google doc

Before you begin searching for literature, you need a clearly defined topic .

If you are writing the literature review section of a dissertation or research paper, you will search for literature related to your research problem and questions .

Make a list of keywords

Start by creating a list of keywords related to your research question. Include each of the key concepts or variables you’re interested in, and list any synonyms and related terms. You can add to this list as you discover new keywords in the process of your literature search.

• Social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok
• Body image, self-perception, self-esteem, mental health
• Generation Z, teenagers, adolescents, youth

Search for relevant sources

Use your keywords to begin searching for sources. Some useful databases to search for journals and articles include:

• Your university’s library catalogue
• Google Scholar
• Project Muse (humanities and social sciences)
• Medline (life sciences and biomedicine)
• EconLit (economics)
• Inspec (physics, engineering and computer science)

You can also use boolean operators to help narrow down your search.

Make sure to read the abstract to find out whether an article is relevant to your question. When you find a useful book or article, you can check the bibliography to find other relevant sources.

You likely won’t be able to read absolutely everything that has been written on your topic, so it will be necessary to evaluate which sources are most relevant to your research question.

For each publication, ask yourself:

• What question or problem is the author addressing?
• What are the key concepts and how are they defined?
• What are the key theories, models, and methods?
• Does the research use established frameworks or take an innovative approach?
• What are the results and conclusions of the study?
• How does the publication relate to other literature in the field? Does it confirm, add to, or challenge established knowledge?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the research?

Make sure the sources you use are credible , and make sure you read any landmark studies and major theories in your field of research.

You can use our template to summarize and evaluate sources you’re thinking about using. Click on either button below to download.

Take notes and cite your sources

As you read, you should also begin the writing process. Take notes that you can later incorporate into the text of your literature review.

It is important to keep track of your sources with citations to avoid plagiarism . It can be helpful to make an annotated bibliography , where you compile full citation information and write a paragraph of summary and analysis for each source. This helps you remember what you read and saves time later in the process.

To begin organizing your literature review’s argument and structure, be sure you understand the connections and relationships between the sources you’ve read. Based on your reading and notes, you can look for:

• Trends and patterns (in theory, method or results): do certain approaches become more or less popular over time?
• Themes: what questions or concepts recur across the literature?
• Debates, conflicts and contradictions: where do sources disagree?
• Pivotal publications: are there any influential theories or studies that changed the direction of the field?
• Gaps: what is missing from the literature? Are there weaknesses that need to be addressed?

This step will help you work out the structure of your literature review and (if applicable) show how your own research will contribute to existing knowledge.

• Most research has focused on young women.
• There is an increasing interest in the visual aspects of social media.
• But there is still a lack of robust research on highly visual platforms like Instagram and Snapchat—this is a gap that you could address in your own research.

There are various approaches to organizing the body of a literature review. Depending on the length of your literature review, you can combine several of these strategies (for example, your overall structure might be thematic, but each theme is discussed chronologically).

Chronological

The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time. However, if you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order.

Try to analyze patterns, turning points and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred.

If you have found some recurring central themes, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic.

For example, if you are reviewing literature about inequalities in migrant health outcomes, key themes might include healthcare policy, language barriers, cultural attitudes, legal status, and economic access.

Methodological

If you draw your sources from different disciplines or fields that use a variety of research methods , you might want to compare the results and conclusions that emerge from different approaches. For example:

• Look at what results have emerged in qualitative versus quantitative research
• Discuss how the topic has been approached by empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the literature into sociological, historical, and cultural sources

Theoretical

A literature review is often the foundation for a theoretical framework . You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts.

You might argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach, or combine various theoretical concepts to create a framework for your research.

Like any other academic text , your literature review should have an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion . What you include in each depends on the objective of your literature review.

The introduction should clearly establish the focus and purpose of the literature review.

Depending on the length of your literature review, you might want to divide the body into subsections. You can use a subheading for each theme, time period, or methodological approach.

As you write, you can follow these tips:

• Summarize and synthesize: give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
• Analyze and interpret: don’t just paraphrase other researchers — add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
• Critically evaluate: mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: use transition words and topic sentences to draw connections, comparisons and contrasts

In the conclusion, you should summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance.

When you’ve finished writing and revising your literature review, don’t forget to proofread thoroughly before submitting. Not a language expert? Check out Scribbr’s professional proofreading services !

This article has been adapted into lecture slides that you can use to teach your students about writing a literature review.

Scribbr slides are free to use, customize, and distribute for educational purposes.

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If you want to know more about the research process , methodology , research bias , or statistics , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• Sampling methods
• Simple random sampling
• Stratified sampling
• Cluster sampling
• Likert scales
• Reproducibility

 Statistics

• Null hypothesis
• Statistical power
• Probability distribution
• Effect size
• Poisson distribution

Research bias

• Optimism bias
• Cognitive bias
• Implicit bias
• Hawthorne effect
• Anchoring bias
• Explicit bias

A literature review is a survey of scholarly sources (such as books, journal articles, and theses) related to a specific topic or research question .

It is often written as part of a thesis, dissertation , or research paper , in order to situate your work in relation to existing knowledge.

There are several reasons to conduct a literature review at the beginning of a research project:

• To familiarize yourself with the current state of knowledge on your topic
• To ensure that you’re not just repeating what others have already done
• To identify gaps in knowledge and unresolved problems that your research can address
• To develop your theoretical framework and methodology
• To provide an overview of the key findings and debates on the topic

Writing the literature review shows your reader how your work relates to existing research and what new insights it will contribute.

The literature review usually comes near the beginning of your thesis or dissertation . After the introduction , it grounds your research in a scholarly field and leads directly to your theoretical framework or methodology .

A literature review is a survey of credible sources on a topic, often used in dissertations , theses, and research papers . Literature reviews give an overview of knowledge on a subject, helping you identify relevant theories and methods, as well as gaps in existing research. Literature reviews are set up similarly to other  academic texts , with an introduction , a main body, and a conclusion .

An  annotated bibliography is a list of  source references that has a short description (called an annotation ) for each of the sources. It is often assigned as part of the research process for a  paper .  

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Progress in adaptive governance research and hotspot analysis: a global scientometric visualization analysis

• Open access
• Published: 03 September 2024
• Volume 5 , article number  234 , ( 2024 )

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• Guanhu Zhao 1 ,
• Xu Hui 2 , 3 ,
• Yao Lu 1 &
• Yuting Zhang 1  

Adaptive governance has emerged as a prominent theoretical and methodological approach in environmental governance, recognized for its capacity to address evolving conditions and future uncertainties. Despite the extensive literature on adaptive governance since its inception in 2003, a comprehensive review of the literature spanning two decades remains to be conducted. This study addresses that gap by selecting 3274 articles from the Web of Science Core Collection and performing a global scientometric visualization analysis. Our analysis identifies the most productive institutions, authors, journals, publication trends, and research frontiers in adaptive governance research. The findings reveal that there has been a significant acceleration in global research on adaptive governance over the past two decades. Furthermore, the majority of contributions to the field of adaptive governance research have been made by scholars based in the United States, Australia, England, Canada, and the Netherlands. Additionally, existing studies in adaptive governance field focus mainly on subject categories of environmental studies, environmental sciences, and ecology. Finally, the concept of adaptive governance, environmental governance, social-ecological systems, climate change adaptation and social learning were identified as hot topics and emerging trends. This study provides researchers and practitioners with an extensive understanding of the salient research themes, trends, and patterns in global adaptive governance research in an intuitive manner.

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1 Introduction

Traditional, top-down, command-and-control approaches to governance are insufficient to address the intricate interdependencies and feedback loops in social-ecological systems [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]. There is a growing recognition that social-ecological systems are complex, dynamic and often unpredictable, and therefore require a governance framework that can adapt to changing conditions and uncertainty [ 4 , 5 , 6 ]. The growing global focus on sustainability and the Sustainable Development Goals has given further impetus to the development of adaptive governance. The concept of adaptive governance has guided the design of policies and institutions that are more flexible, participatory and better able to respond to complex environmental and social challenges [ 7 , 8 ]. It has also facilitated the practice of adaptive management, including monitoring results, learning from them and adjusting management strategies [ 9 , 10 ]. In addition, adaptive governance promotes an interdisciplinary approach, integrating knowledge from different scientific disciplines, and it fosters the development of resilience thinking to provide more inclusive and effective solutions for sustainable development [ 5 , 11 ]. Adaptive governance has contributed to meeting the challenges of environmental management and sustainable development, but there are many skeptics. Critics argue that adaptive governance can be difficult to implement due to resistance to change, power imbalances, and a lack of clear guidelines, the conceptual underpinnings of adaptive governance remain largely theorized [ 6 , 12 ]. While adaptive governance embraces uncertainty, critics point out that it can sometimes lead to paralysis in decision-making or inaction due to lack more information communication [ 3 , 13 ]. Assessing the success of adaptive governance is challenging due to the lack of clear metrics and the long-term nature of results [ 14 ]. Academic evaluations of adaptive governance have been mixed and have attracted sustained attention and in-depth research. However, existing research has not fully answered the critics' questions, and few studies have provided an overview of adaptive governance.

More than two decades have passed since the formal introduction of the term "adaptive governance" by Dietz et al. in the journal Science in 2003 [ 15 ]. Adaptive governance has been described as an ‘outgrowth’ of managing uncertainty and complexity in social-ecological systems [ 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 ] and is defined as ‘an emergent, self-organized process’ and a practice [ 12 , 20 ]. Based on the systems of social and ecological interdependence, adaptive governance is widely used in environmental governance research [ 21 , 22 ]. Meanwhile, it has also garnered attention in various other disciplines. Adaptive governance is also described as the purposeful collective actions to resist, adapt, or transform when faced with shocks [ 23 ]. The theoretical and empirical research of adaptive governance is ongoing in areas such as water governance [ 24 ], biosecurity governance [ 25 ], food security [ 26 ], disaster research [ 27 ], law [ 28 ], political science [ 29 ], entrepreneurial learning [ 30 ], policy science [ 31 ], community resilience [ 32 ], and public administration [ 33 ], and international trade [ 34 ].

The term "adaptive governance" has varying interpretations among different scholars from different disciplines [ 18 , 25 ]. researchers have summarized adaptive governance mainly focusing on aspects of environmental governance, social-ecological system management, water governance, marine resources, and resilience [ 16 , 35 , 36 ]. However, the literature to date has been conducted in isolated studies where related topics are discussed separately. These studies have not delved into the evolution of adaptive governance research over the past 20 years, which limits our ability to integrate it effectively into different disciplines. To bridge this gap, we used literature data visualization software to outline the research trend of adaptive governance research, summarize the current state, and clarify possible future developments from multiple disciplines' perspectives by gathering a large number of publications.

Bibliometric methods can be used as a quantitative analytical tool to understand the current status and gaps a specific research area [ 37 , 38 ]. This study aims to conduct a comprehensive bibliometric and visual analysis of adaptive governance research over the past two decades. The primary objective of this paper is to address four key research questions pertaining to adaptive governance. These questions include: (1) What is the overall trend in the number of publications on the subject of adaptive governance research worldwide? (2) Which countries or regions have made significant contributions to the field of adaptive governance? (3) Which institutions, disciplines, journals, authors and literatures have exerted the most significant impact on adaptive governance research? (4) What are the primary intellectual foundations and research hotspots in adaptive governance research? The contributions of this paper are as follows. Firstly, it provides a comprehensive review of the progress of adaptive governance from a multidisciplinary perspective. Secondly, the trends and hot topics identified in this study can assist scholars in further developing research on adaptive governance.

2 Data sources and methods

Review articles can provide valuable summaries of a growing body of original research [ 39 ]. The most common methods for conducting a literature review are systematic literature reviews, meta-analysis and bibliometric analysis. Systematic literature reviews encapsulate the acquisition, arrangement, and assessment of the extant literature using systematic procedures, which are typically carried out manually (e.g., thematic and content analyses) by scholars [ 40 ]. Systematic literature reviews is qualitative research methods, which typically include a smaller number of papers (e.g., between tens or hundreds), and their research scope is narrower [ 41 ]. Therefore, systematic literature reviews are more suitable for confined studies (e.g., social learning in adaptive governance) or niche research areas (e.g., the impact of digital technologies on adaptive governance). Meta-analysis estimates "the across-study variance in the distribution of effect-size estimates and the factors that explain this variance" [ 42 ]. Specifically, meta-analysis is a quantitative research method, which often analyses the direction and strength of relationships between variables by summarising quantitative empirical evidence. Therefore, meta-analysis is often used as a theory extension tool that reveals mixed empirical findings and boundary conditions (moderating effects analysis) [ 43 ]. Bibliometrics is also a quantitative research method, which initially introduced by Pritchard, uses quantitative and statistical methods to reveal the characteristics of research attributes within a specific field [ 44 ]. Qualitative research methods may be subject to the interpretative bias of scholars from different academic backgrounds [ 45 ], which can be avoided or mitigated by bibliometric analyses that rely on quantitative techniques. Bibliometric analyses can analyze the social and structural relationships between different research components (e.g. authors and institutions) and summarise the structure of knowledge in a field [ 46 ]. This paper considers a dataset of over three thousand papers that do not involve variable effect size analyses. Therefore, bibliometric methods were used in this paper without the use of alternative meta-analyses and systematic literature reviews.

By using bibliometric methods and visualization software for knowledge mapping, the knowledge distribution and emerging trends of adaptive governance research can be analyzed from different multidimensional perspectives. Citation visualization analysis methods is one of the most important components of bibliometrics, which combines bibliometrics and data visualization methods to reveal the intrinsic connections between disciplines and research patterns [ 47 ]. The bibliometric method has been utilized in numerous research fields, including safety culture research [ 48 ], green supply chain management [ 49 ], knowledge management [ 50 ] and human resource analytics [ 51 ]. Consequently, bibliometrics has emerged as an important research tool across disciplines.

Since the concept of adaptive governance was formally introduced in 2003, there have been more than 20 years of interdisciplinary research on adaptive governance, during which a great deal of knowledge has been accumulated. To facilitate the advancement of innovative research on adaptive governance, it is essential to conduct a comprehensive review of the progress and research hotspots of adaptive governance research over the past 20 years. By utilizing a bibliometric approach and the extensive adaptive governance literature, this study identifies emerging research focal points and trends in adaptive governance literature, as well as provides practitioners and researchers with a general overview of adaptive governance and guidelines for finding new research directions.

2.1 Data collection

Literature databases such as Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus and Google Scholar are often used by international scholars. However, some scholars have demonstrated that the knowledge map generated by the literature within the Web of Science database is better, as evidenced by the use of CiteSpace software for visual analysis [ 52 , 53 ]. In light of these findings, the "Web of Science" database was chosen to search and collect the literature data required for this study's analysis. To ensure the acquisition of authentic and representative data, the literature database of the Web of Science Core Collection including the Science Citation Index Expanded, Social Sciences Citation Index, and Arts & Humanities Citation Index was searched, boasting the world's largest collection of literature covering numerous disciplines. This extensive coverage enables WOSCC to provide more comprehensive text information for bibliometric analysis.

Before commencing the search, a pre-search strategy was developed, primarily based on keywords. Following a meticulous review of relevant articles, and drawing on topic search methods from existing research, a topic-specific search was conducted using the query: TS = "adaptive governance" [ 4 , 54 ]. The search encompassed the period from January 2003 to December 2022, focusing specifically on articles. This process yielded a total of 3302 records. By utilizing the refinement functions of WOS categories and document types, we excluded non-English articles and removed duplicates, resulting in a final count of 3274 records. The 3274 records include the following information: Article Title, Author Information, Journal Information, Keywords, Citation Information, and so on.

We collected data on the characteristics of all accessed publications, including publication years, document types, languages, authors, journals, countries/regions, and institutes. Additionally, we obtained information on the H-index, the top 15 research areas with the most publications, the top 10 countries with the most publications, the top 10 institutes with the most publications, and the top 10 authors with the most publications. Furthermore, we gathered data on the publication count of the top 10 most cited journals, the 2022 journal Impact Factor (IF) and 5-year Impact Factor (IF), total citations, and average citations per paper. Lastly, we documented the starting year, betweenness centrality, and citation frequency of the top 10 most-cited references.

2.2 Data analysis

The collected data were analyzed using various software tools, including Microsoft Excel 2021 (Redmond WA, USA) [ 55 ], CiteSpace 6.4 (Chaomei Chen, China) [ 56 ], VOSviewer 1.6.16 (Centre for Science and Technology Studies, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands) [ 57 ], Gephi 0.10.1 (Gephi Consortium, Paris, France) [ 58 ] and Scimago Graphica 1.0.36 (Scimago Research, Spain) [ 59 ]. CiteSpace, VOSviewer and Gephi software were used for bibliometric analysis, while Scimago Graphica was used to visualize the collaborative relationships in countries/regions.

The parameters and knowledge maps that result from the subsequent scientometric analyses are uniformly explained here. In the knowledge maps, the size of the nodes represents the frequency of occurrence of authors, countries, institutions, and journals, while the connections between the nodes indicate that the authors (or countries, institutions, and journals) represented by these nodes appear in the same article [ 60 ]. Generally, when two or more authors (countries, institutions, etc.) appear in the same paper, it suggests a scientific research cooperation relationship between those authors (countries, institutions, etc.) [ 61 ]. Betweenness centrality refers to the extent to which the node is in the middle of a path that connects other nodes in the network [ 62 ]. CiteSpace employs the betweenness centrality indicator to measure the importance of nodes in a network to discover and measure the importance of documents (or authors, countries, institutions, journals, etc.) [ 63 ]. Betweenness centrality ranges from [0, 1], the higher the value the more important node in a network. The H-index is a metric proposed by physicist George Hirsch of the University of California, USA, which indicates that h of the N papers published in a journal have been cited at least h times. The starting year represents the year when the article was first published. Total citations represents the total citations of papers published by a country or institution in a given field, while average citations represent the average of citations of papers published by a country or institution in a given field [ 64 ].

CiteSpace proposes two indicators to judge the effect of spectrogram drawing: the modularity value and the silhouette value [ 63 ]. The silhouette value evaluates the clustering effect by measuring the homogeneity of the network, while the modularity measures the structural characteristics of the overall clustering network. Both the silhouette and modularity values range from 0 to 1, and the silhouette of each cluster should be above 0.7 [ 65 ]. The closer the silhouette value is to 1, the more perfect the clustering is. A silhouette value closer to 1 indicates higher network homogeneity and greater reliability of the clustering results, especially above 0.7.

3.1 Distribution characteristics of adaptive governance research

3.1.1 publications trends.

Changes in the number of scientific research results can provide insights into scholars' attention toward a specific subject area. This serves as an important indicator for revealing the development trends in scientific research [ 66 ]. Figure  1 depicts the quantity and trend of published papers in the field of adaptive governance research. Annual publications can explain the dynamics of adaptive governance research in the past and assist scholars in assessing its future developmental trajectory. It is observed that overall publications exhibit an increasing trend with fluctuations: the quantity of publications in 2022 surpasses that of 2003 by approximately 50-fold. In particular, the cumulative publications over the latest five-year period (2018–2022) amount to 1676 (constituting 51.19% of the calculated years), providing evidence of the escalating scholarly attention garnered by adaptive governance research and the amplifying production of academic literature.

Number of publications on adaptive governance research from 2003 to 2022 and the fitted trend line

Furthermore, it can be found that the number of annual publications exhibits fluctuations (the trend is not consistently increasing), which is a common occurrence in academic research due to the existence of study periods for research domains. Despite a marginal decline observed in 2022, characterized by the publication of only 257 papers, it is enough to show that this research field has continuously stimulated the interest of many scholars. In conclusion, the increasing trend shows that research on adaptive governance is still widespread. According to the fitted trend line y  = 21.307 x  − 60.021 ( R 2  = 0.9123 > 0.75, y is the annual publications, x is the year) shows substantial predictive power [ 67 ], which means the rapid growth trend of adaptive governance studies in the past 20 years.

3.1.2 Distribution of countries/regions

The analysis of papers' country/region information can assist researchers in comprehending the global geographical distribution of adaptive governance research and the cooperation among countries/regions. Over the past 20 years, 135 countries from 6 continents have been involved in research on adaptive governance. We used Scimago Graphica software to map the geographical distribution and collaboration of adaptive governance research, as demonstrated in Fig.  2 . The figure displays that research on adaptive governance is carried out across several continents, including Asia, Europe, Africa, the Americas and Oceania. Among these regions, Europe dominates with 76.42% of the published articles, followed by North America at 41.45% and Asia at 19.43%. These figures highlight Europe's significant research contribution in advancing the field of adaptive governance. This may be related to policies such as The European Commission’s Climate Change Adaptation Strategy published in 2013, the European Green Deal in 2019, and the new European Commission’s Strategy for Adaptation to Climate Change in 2021. Adaptation to climate change is an important part of these policies, fuelling research on adaptive governance by European scholars.

Geographical distribution and cooperation

By analyzing the network of cooperation between countries and regions, it is possible to identify priority countries and regions that have published a large number of papers in a given field and have had a significant influence [ 68 ]. The co-authorship network can reflect the cooperation relationship among objects such as authors, organizations, and countries/regions [ 69 ]. The CiteSpace software was used to create the national or regional cooperation relationship network map, as depicted in Fig.  3 . The size of each circle represents the number of publications, while the lines between them denote cooperative relationships [ 70 ].

Visualization map of countries/regions cooperation relationship network

The thickness of the lines indicates the strength of links between the countries or regions. The betweenness centrality of countries or regions helps discover and measure their importance. Pink circles are used to highlight countries or regions with high betweenness centrality. Figure  3 shows that the United States, England, Canada, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Germany publish a greater number of papers and have greater betweenness centrality, while Australia has a greater number of publications but lower betweenness centrality. Figure  3 illustrates that countries or regions exhibit close cooperation, with a network density of 0.1522.

According to betweenness centrality in Table  1 and Fig.  3 , the United States has the thickest outer circle, with a betweenness centrality value of 0.19, which indicates its critical role in the knowledge dissemination process of adaptive governance research. Other countries with a betweenness centrality greater than 0.1 include England, Canada, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Germany. Regarding the commencement of adaptive governance research, the USA and England were pioneers, starting in 2003. Following suit, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, Sweden, Germany, China, and Spain joined the endeavor in 2004. Lastly, South Africa began studying adaptive governance in 2005. There is a positive correlation between a country's starting year and its total citations. This is because earlier publications are more likely to be cited. As a whole, numerous countries and regions tend to collaborate and communicate with each other, highlighting the strong global network characteristics of adaptive governance research.

3.1.3 Distribution of productive institutions

In bibliometrics, a 'productive institution' is usually an academic or research institution that has a high level of productivity in terms of publications in peer-reviewed journals. An analysis of organizational cooperation allows for the identification of the most productive and influential institutions [ 71 ].

A clear overview of institutional cooperation was presented using Gephi software, which generated a cooperation network map for institutions with more than eight articles, as depicted in Fig.  4 . In the map, the larger the node, the higher the centrality of the nodes; the thicker the lines between the nodes, the closer the cooperation between the two nodes [ 72 ]. Stockholm University is the largest node in the network, indicating that it has published the largest number of papers on adaptive governance in collaboration with other research institutions and has made the most significant contributions to adaptive governance research. In addition, the cooperation between productive institutions is rather loose and needs to be further strengthened.

Visualization map of cooperation network between productive institutions

Table 2 lists the top 10 productive institutions in adaptive governance research. With 130 publications, Stockholm University is the most productive institution in this field and has the highest betweenness centrality 0.14, indicating that the institution is engaged in extensive collaboration. This may be related to the Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University, where one of the strategic focuses is on complex adaptive systems. Since its launch in 2007, the Stockholm Resilience Centre has developed into a global reference point for sustainability science and resilience thinking. The University of Queensland came second with 77 articles published, closely followed by James Cook University and Arizona State University in third and fourth place, respectively. It is worth mentioning that Stockholm University, Arizona State University, and James Cook University have impressively high average citation frequencies of 113.77, 104.68, and 67.03, respectively. This indicates the quality and wide availability of their papers as references for scholars in the field. It is worth noting that research on adaptive Governance began a decade ago (2004–2011) in all of these top 10 productive institutions, highlighting the sustained attention that this important area of research has received.

3.1.4 Distribution of category

The co-occurrence visualization map of the category network depicted in Fig.  5 was generated using CiteSpace. According to the analysis conducted by the CiteSpace software, we identified 134 topic categories within adaptive governance research, with 15 of them occurring more than 90 times (Table  3 ).

The co-occurrence visualization map of the category network

First, the categories with the highest number of publications in adaptive governance research are, in order, "environmental studies", "environmental science" and "ecology", accounting for shares of 36.5%, 31.9%, and 13.3% respectively. According to the Web of Science research area classification, environmental science and environmental studies belong to different research areas [ 73 ]. Whereas environmental science is rooted in the natural sciences and technical solutions to environmental problems, environmental studies is more interdisciplinary, focusing on the socio-political and human aspects of environmental issues. This could indicate that adaptive governance research is a multidisciplinary field of study in the natural and social sciences.

Among the top 15 disciplines, "environmental studies" has the highest betweenness centrality (betweenness centrality = 0.29), playing a pivotal role in the field of adaptive governance research. Following closely is "environmental science" (betweenness centrality = 0.21), and then "ecology” (betweenness centrality = 0.13). It is evident that "environmental studies", "environmental science", and "ecology" are the primary disciplines studying adaptive governance and play a crucial role in leading its development. Second, the categories within the natural sciences, including "Water Resources" (Frequency = 304), "Green and Sustainable Science and Technology" (Frequency = 261), "Geography" (Frequency = 235), and "Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences" (Frequency = 131), have shown consistent growth and have contributed a significant number of research results to the field of adaptive governance. Third, the social sciences categories, including "Regional and Urban Planning" (Frequency = 199), "Development Studies" (Frequency = 167), "International Relations" (Frequency = 139), "Management" (Frequency = 122), "Economics" (Frequency = 120), "Public Administration" (Frequency = 116), "Urban Studies" (Frequency = 112), and "Political Science" (Frequency = 93), have all demonstrated continuous growth and have produced a diverse range of research outcomes. In summary, adaptive governance research is a multidisciplinary field that encompasses a wide range of disciplines, and the development of different disciplines has contributed significantly to the integration of adaptive governance research into multidisciplinary science.

3.1.5 Distribution of co-citation journals

Co-citation analysis shows the relationship between items that have been cited together a number of times, and its abilities lie in the prevention of academic isolation and the acceleration of knowledge integration for consistency across different disciplines [ 74 ]. Journal co-citation is when two articles published in different journals are simultaneously cited by a third article in another journal [ 53 ]. The VOSviewer was used to perform a Co-citation analysis of journals. By setting the minimum number of citations of a source to 80, a total of 298 nodes were generated. Figure  6 presents the network visualization map of co-citation journals in adaptive governance. The top 10 highly cited journals and their corresponding statistical parameters in adaptive governance research are demonstrated in Table  4 . Ecology and Society, which is hosted in Canada, is the most influential journal in terms of citation frequency. This journal has been cited a total of 8319 times and has a total link strength of 338,556. Global Environmental Change, hosted by the United Kingdom, is the second-ranked journal with 6097 citations and a total link strength of 249,811. Both the total citation frequency and total link strength of these journals are significantly higher than other journals, indicating their highest unparalleled recognition and expertise in adaptive governance research. They are followed by Science, Environmental Science & Policy, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, and Marine Policy. All of these journals have received more than 2000 citations, and their total connection strengths exceed 90,000, highlighting their substantial influence in adaptive governance research. Adaptive governance is a multidisciplinary field of research, and there has been a notable increase in the number of papers on adaptive governance published in both general academic journals and journals focusing on sustainability or climate research. Concurrently, researchers engaged in the field of adaptive governance continue to publish a greater number of papers in journals specializing in sustainability or climate research, and have the highest number of citations compared to general academic journals.

Network visualization map of co-citation journals

Upon analysis of the ten most highly cited journals, our research reveals that there is a concentration of such influential publications in Europe and North America. Specifically, out of the top-ranked journals, five are from the USA, three originate from the UK, and the remaining two are from the Netherlands and Canada, respectively. The concentration of these publications implies that adaptive governance research in the USA and the UK is driving further progress in this field.

3.1.6 Distribution and collaboration of authors

A total of 9702 researchers have made contributions to the realm of adaptive governance. The average number of authors per article was 2.96, indicating that collaborative efforts among multiple authors are a prominent characteristic in the field of adaptive governance research. Table 5 presents the top 10 productive authors in adaptive governance research, providing statistical information such as their number of publications, institution, country, and H-index. The highest number of publications was achieved by Claudia Pahl-Wostl and Ryan Plummer, who published 26 articles each. Carl Folke follows closely in second place with 23 papers. Derek Armitage tied for third place with 21 papers. Ahjond Garmestani published 17 articles, and authors who have published 15 articles are Per Angelstam, Julia Baird, Brian C. Chaffin, Henrik Österblom, and Lisen Schultz. The top 10 prolific authors produced outstanding results in the adaptive governance field, as most of the authors have an H-index greater than 30. The publication years of these high-yield authors indicate that they became active in the field after 2006. This highlights the last two decades as a critical period for adaptive governance research, particularly the last ten years.

The authors having published more than five articles were counted, and a network map depicting the main authors' cooperative relationships was generated using VOSviewer software (See Fig.  7 ). Each node on the map represents an author, and its size indicates the number of articles published by that author. Figure  7 illustrates the presence of multiple potential cooperation teams within the network. Notably, there are four prominent teams represented by green, red, blue and yellow networks. The first research team (green) is represented by Ahjond Garmestani and Brian C. Chaffin. The second research team (red) is represented by Carl Folke, Per Olsson and Henrik Österblom. The third research team (blue) is represented by Sarah Clement, Susan A Moore and Michael Lockwood. The fourth research team (yellow) is represented by Ryan Plummer, Derek Armitage, Julia Baird and Lisen Schultz. There is extensive and productive collaboration within these four teams. However, the overall network of co-authorship appears to be relatively loose. Therefore, there is a need to encourage cross-institutional and cross-border collaboration between authors in the field of adaptive governance research, which will facilitate knowledge sharing for the joint publication of higher-level scientific papers.

Visualization map of main author cooperation network

Authors with a citation frequency exceeding 100 were identified via the VOSviewer software, displaying their co-citation network in Fig.  8 . The publications of co-cited authors can be categorized into four themes, represented by the yellow, green, red, and blue colors. As adaptive governance is an interdisciplinary field, most of the citations between co-cited authors span different topics. Notably, Carl Folke, Elinor Ostrom, Claudia Pahl-Wostl, Fikret Berkes, W. Neil Adger, Per Olsson, Crawford Stanley Holling, and Brian Walker were co-cited most frequently.

Network visualization map of co-cited authors

Table 6 shows the 10 most cited authors with their frequency, total link strength, institution, year of publication and H-index. However, the most productive authors are not the most influential authors. Among these authors, Carl Folke of Stockholm University is recognized as the most influential, with his work cited 1916 times, ranking first among the list. Folke C et al. are credited with publishing the first paper directly related to adaptive governance. One of his most influential articles is “Adaptive governance of social-ecological systems” published in 2005. This article introduced the social dimension necessary for adaptive ecosystem-based management, focusing on the experiences of adaptive governance during periods of abrupt change and exploring social sources of renewal and reorganization [ 18 ]. Elinor Ostrom from Indiana University Bloomington has accumulated 1508 citations for articles in the field of adaptive governance and is ranked second among highly cited authors. The article "A General Framework for Analyzing Sustainability of Social-Ecological Systems", published in Science in 2008 by Ostrom E et al., provided a multilevel, nested framework for analyzing the outcomes achieved in social-ecological systems [ 75 ]. Claudia Pahl-Wostl from Osnabrück University has been cited 1,144 times in the field of adaptive governance and is ranked third among highly cited authors. In 2009, Claudia Pahl-Wostl published a conference paper titled “A conceptual framework for analyzing adaptive capacity and multi-level learning processes in resource governance regimes”. This paper developed a conceptual framework for analyzing the dynamics and adaptive capacity of resource governance regimes as multi-level learning processes, capable of responding to resource governance challenges.

In addition to the aforementioned authors, the top 10 highly cited authors consist of Fikret Berkes, W. Neil Adger, Per Olsson, Crawford Stanley Holling, Brian Walker, Derek Armitage, and Ryan Plummer. It is noteworthy that these authors have contributed significantly to adaptive governance fields.

3.2 Intellectual bases and hotspots of adaptive governance research

3.2.1 intellectual bases of adaptive governance research.

Analysis of highly cited literature

Mutual citations of documents can reflect the objective laws of the development of the field of study [ 76 ]. Furthermore, top-cited publications commonly serve as the foundation and foundation for a specific field [ 77 ]. Based on citation frequency, this study selected the top ten references in adaptive governance research, providing detailed information about them in Table  7 . It should be noted that the citation frequency in this article is restricted to the mutual citation among these 3274 articles. Therefore, the precise citation frequency differs from the stats provided by the Web of Science. Table 7 shows three of the top ten most cited articles from Ecology and Society, as well as top journals such as science. These cited journals represent the research main foundation of in adaptive governance research.

The review "A decade of adaptive governance scholarship: synthesis and future directions" has been cited 99 times, making it the most frequently cited paper in the field of adaptive governance. This paper provides an overview of the principal literature on adaptive governance in the decade following 2003. Adaptive governance is defined as a range of interactions between actors, networks, organizations, and institutions emerging in pursuit of a desired state for social-ecological systems [ 16 ]. The second most cited article, titled “A conceptual framework for analyzing adaptive capacity and multi-level learning processes in resource governance regimes” was cited 82 times. This paper developed a conceptual framework that facilitates flexible and context-sensitive analysis, addressing the dynamics and adaptive capacity of resource governance regimes as multi-level learning processes [ 78 ]. The article “Evolution of co-management: role of knowledge generation, bridging organizations and social learning”, published in 2009, is the third most cited literature with 79 citations. This paper critically reviewed the theory and practice of co-management, and analyzed the role of knowledge generation, bridging organizations, social learning and adaptation, and demonstrated the similarities and distinctions among co-management, adaptive management, and adaptive co-management [ 79 ]. In conclusion, the majority of highly cited documents are comprehensive papers that provide summaries and valuable commentary.

Meanwhile, the book "Resilience thinking: sustaining ecosystems and people in a changing world", published in 2012, stands as the most widely read book in adaptive governance research. Resilience thinking is strongly interconnected with adaptive governance and emphasizes the criticality of considering the interdependencies of social and ecological systems. This book, authored by Walker B and Salt D, presented an accessible introduction to the emerging paradigm of resilience and is frequently cited by scholars in the field of adaptive governance [ 82 ]. Additionally, the article "Adaptive governance of social-ecological systems" holds the highest betweenness centrality, which is deemed to be highly significant in the realm of adaptive governance research. This paper examines the social dimensions of achieving ecosystem-based adaptive management, with a specific focus on experiences of adaptive governance in social-ecological systems during times of crisis. It emphasizes that a resilient social-ecological system can leverage a crisis as an opportunity for transformation towards a more desirable state [ 18 ].

Cluster analysis of literature co-citation network

We used CiteSpace software for conducting a cluster analysis of the highly cited literature, as shown in Fig.  9 . To gain a deeper understanding of clustering, Table  8 provides more detailed information on clustering.

Knowledge map of co-citation literature cluster network

The modularity value and the silhouette value can be used to judge the effect of spectrogram drawing. The larger the silhouette, the more perfect the clustering. The mean silhouette value of clusters in Fig.  9 is 0.9545, and all the silhouette values of each part are above 0.7, suggesting high network reliability [ 65 ]. Additionally, Modularity can measure the structural characteristics of the overall clustering network. The modularity of the clustering is 0.8961in Fig.  9 , indicating the fitting effect is preferable [ 65 ]. Upon integrating the clustered content, the intellectual foundations of adaptive governance were classified into seven categories: the evolution of adaptive governance knowledge, social capital mechanisms, social-ecological systems, dynamic systems theory, climate change, and local knowledge [ 63 ].

3.2.2 Research hotspots of adaptive governance

Keywords provide a high-level overview of research papers, and analyzing keywords in a particular field can identify research hotspots [ 47 ]. Table 9 presents only the top 30 high-frequency keywords due to length limitations. It was found that the top 10 high-frequency keywords are governance, management, climate change, adaptive governance, resilience, adaptive capacity, framework, adaptation, policy, and adaptive management. The top 50 high-frequency keywords were extracted to form clusters, as illustrated in Fig.  10 . The clustering is perfect, with the average modularity and silhouette values of the clustering depicted in Fig.  10 being 0.8508 and 0.9537, respectively. Finally, five hotspots were derived by summarizing all clusters identified by CiteSpace, and detailed analyses are as follows:

The cluster network mapping of high-frequency keywords

Topic one: the concept of adaptive governance (cluster zero and cluster three)

Despite the popularity of adaptive governance, the distinction between its concept and its neighboring concepts is not yet clear enough. However, some scholars mistakenly conflate adaptive governance with adaptive management, adaptive co-management, and adaptive institutions [ 85 , 86 ]. There are varying interpretations and definitions of adaptive governance across different fields. However, establishing a clear definition and differentiation of these concepts to reach a consensus remains a pressing issue for researchers in adaptive governance. Consequently, numerous scholars have turned their attention to untangling the concept of adaptive governance and its related concepts. According to Hasselman different epistemologies and the resulting interpretations of uncertainty are central to the confusion surrounding the concept of adaptive governance [ 86 ]. In terms of its links to neighboring concepts, adaptive governance is closely related to resilience, collaborative governance, and participatory decision-making. These concepts often intersect and influence one another in practice. Empirically, adaptive governance has delivered positive outcomes in various contexts, such as natural resource management [ 87 , 88 ], disaster governance [ 89 ], risk governance [ 90 ] and climate change adaptation [ 91 ]. It has been shown to enhance the ability of decision-makers to address complex and uncertain challenges [ 92 ]. Practical policy and governance recommendations stemming from adaptive governance include fostering collaboration between different stakeholders [ 93 ], building social capital [ 94 , 95 ], and enhancing the capacity for learning and innovation within governance structures [ 91 , 96 ].

Topic two: environmental governance (cluster one, cluster two and cluster seven).

Luhmann considered system-environment relations to be precarious, while the recurrent ecological crisis shows the problems of environmental sustainability [ 97 ]. It is increasingly recognized that environmental problems around the world are not only a result of inadequate management but also a failure of governance [ 78 ]. Due to the rapidly changing environment, it is difficult for a top-down, state-orientated governance system to be fully effective in addressing the problems of environmental governance characterized by uncertainty, complexity and across large-scale ecosystems that cross multiple jurisdiction boundaries [ 98 , 99 ]. As a response to dramatic environmental changes, adaptive governance is frequently advocated as a solution [ 1 ]. Adaptive governance challenges the traditional environmental governance knowledge and common sense of centralized governance, top-down directive and state-based governance. The attributes of adaptive governance include a variety (hierarchical, networks), institutional nesting (complex, redundant, layered) and analytical deliberation [ 100 ]. Adaptive governance has significantly contributed to environmental governance debates by highlighting the importance of flexibility, stakeholder inclusivity, polycentric governance structures, iterative learning processes, and resilience. Namely, adaptive governance brings together formal and informal institutions to address the uncertainty and complexity associated with vital environmental challenges, such as transboundary pollution and tropical deforestation [ 16 , 101 ]. However, critics have identified some limitations in adaptive governance. They argue that the approach's embrace of uncertainty and the need to synthesize complexities is too theoretical to be effectively implemented in practice. In reality, stakeholders and practitioners must grapple with the often ambiguous and always complex requirements of adaptive governance. Therefore, the researcher focuses on operationalizing adaptive governance in environmental governance and emphasizes the necessity for further research on cross-institutional learning, ranging from local to international levels [ 102 ]. Over the past two decades, researchers engaged in the study of complex environmental governance issues have gradually refined the theory of adaptive governance and presented evidence of successful adaptive governance practices in numerous case studies. As a result, environmental governance has emerged as a prominent research topic within the field of adaptive governance.

Topic three: social-ecological systems (cluster four and cluster six)

Researchers have used the concepts of coupled socioecological systems [ 103 ] and ecosocial systems [ 104 ] to illustrate the interactions between societies and ecosystems, but the use of either social or ecological as a prefix can lead to misinterpretation by decreasing their weight in the analytical process. Consequently, Berkes and Folke (1998) introduced the term 'socio-ecological' systems to emphasize the integration and interdependence of humans and nature [ 105 ]. Dietz et al. describe the need for ‘adaptive’ governance of socio-ecological systems, pointing out that our understanding of any system can be wrong and incomplete, and that the governance required may change as biophysical and social system components change [ 15 ]. In theory, adaptive governance posits that the higher the level of adaptiveness of the governance system to the functioning and changes in the socio-ecological system, the greater the likelihood of achieving sustainable development goals [ 106 ].

The boundaries of socio-ecological systems are not fixed or easily delineated due to the complex and interdependent nature of these systems. Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom advanced the view that social-ecological complexity should be embraced and developed a framework for social-ecological systems to facilitate a deeper understanding of the factors that contribute to the success or failure of different social-ecological systems contexts [ 107 ]. The analytical framework developed by Elinor Ostrom and others is often used to study the effects and outcomes of natural resource governance in various social-ecological systems. A common criticism of Ostrom's framework is that it fails to account for power dynamics and historical influences [ 108 ]. However, the widespread use of the Ostrom framework has facilitated extensive comparisons of various social-ecological systems, thereby opening up avenues for subsequent improvements. These comparisons have yielded a wealth of knowledge on the adaptive governance of social-ecological systems.

In recent years, the concept of adaptive governance for social-ecological systems has attracted increasing scientific and policy interest [ 22 ]. A key strength of adaptive governance is its ability to provide a theoretical framework for research that integrates the analysis of new governance capacities, including adaptive capacity, collaboration, scalability, knowledge, and learning. For instance, Folke et al. identified four key features that are essential for the implementation of adaptive governance in social-ecological systems [ 18 ]. Huber-Stearns and Cheng studied the changing role of government in the context of adaptive governance for freshwater social-ecological systems [ 109 ]. Tuda et al. argue that promoting adaptive governance for transboundary marine ecosystem services requires creating policy frameworks that enable cross-sectoral integration and provide opportunities to collaborate among stakeholders [ 110 ]. The existence of various social-ecological systems is a ubiquitous phenomenon, occurring wherever human communities and large-scale activities are present. Consequently, the scope of research on adaptive socio-ecological governance is extremely broad, to achieve the goal of sustainable development.

Topic four: climate change adaptation (cluster five and cluster eight)

Climate change presents a widespread challenge facing human society, with uncertain but potentially severe consequences affecting natural and human systems, across generations. Climate change adaptation is implemented to mitigate the detrimental impact of climate change [ 111 ]. In the climate context, adaptations is defined as the "adjustments in individual groups and institutional behavior to reduce society's vulnerability to climate" [ 112 ]. The concept of adaptation implies the capacity to overcome stress and respond to change, as well as the ability to transform social-ecological systems into improved states [ 18 ]. In this treatment of the term, “adaptation” can be distinguished from “adaptive” features that allow societies to function within their environments [ 113 ]. Adaptive capacity is defined as the ability of a system to adjust to climate change, mitigate potential damages, benefit from opportunities, or cope with consequences [ 114 ]. Adaptive capacity can be categorized into four factors: flexibility and diversity, organizational capacity, learning and knowledge, and access to assets [ 115 ]. Adaptive capacity is closely related to other concepts, including resilience, adaptability, management capacity, coping ability, flexibility and stability. As the impacts of climate change become more apparent and urgent, researchers are dedicated to understanding how governance systems can effectively address and adapt to these changes. The concept of adaptive governance has proven useful in devising strategies to cope with climate change-related transformations [ 116 ]. Given that uncertainty is an inherent feature of climate change, adaptive governance is considered an important approach to improving climate change adaptation. Furthermore, Climate change adaptation benefits from flexible decision-making approaches that can be linked to key principles of adaptive governance. Munaretto et al. proposed a framework that integrates key features of adaptive governance into a participatory multi-criteria approach to climate adaptation governance [ 92 ]. Huh et al. explored the approach to multilateral governance for adapting to climate change in Korea and found that it is characterized by both vertical and horizontal adaptation governance principles [ 117 ]. Vella et al. propose a more systematic scaling up of governance and planning to facilitate the meeting of multilevel climate change adaptation needs [ 118 ]. Sauer, et al. identified the barriers and enablers of adaptive governance using social network analysis combined with qualitative information [ 119 ]. Adaptive governance responds to systemic, wicked, complex climate change by enhancing adaptive capacity and social learning [ 120 ]. An adaptive governance system that responds to climate change would include elements of an adaptive management system that monitors and assesses the impact of development decisions; forms of adaptive co-management in the rationing of resources; and anticipatory governance mechanisms that use scenario planning to develop adaptation strategies and assess whether current policies will be sufficient in the changing climate of the future [ 120 ]. A substantial corpus of research exists on the subject of adaptive governance in the context of climate change adaptation. This field of study has emerged as a significant area of interest within adaptive governance.

Topic five: social learning (cluster nine)

Social learning has been defined as "achieving concerted action in complex and uncertain situations" [ 121 ]. Definitions of the concept of social learning in the existing literature are often ambiguous, and some are so broad that they could cover almost any social process. In the context of adaptive governance processes, social learning can be conceptualized as a cyclic and iterative process in which individuals and collectives learn through social interactions with others, both online and offline [ 122 , 123 , 124 ].

Social learning is at the heart of solving environmental problems that arise in repeated iterations. Social learning plays a critical role in adaptive governance as it serves as an indicator of adaptive capacity [ 125 , 126 ]. Social learning enhances resilience by providing access to knowledge negotiation and knowledge sharing [ 78 , 127 , 128 ], meanwhile, learning during emergencies can lead to innovation [ 129 , 130 ]. Due to its significance in fostering adaptive governance, social learning has become a focal point in adaptive governance research. Learning initially proposed by Argyris and Schön, has evolved into different forms, including single-loop learning, double-loop learning, and triple-loop learning [ 32 , 131 ]. Single-loop learning focuses on making adjustments based on mistakes and improving routine practices. Double-loop learning involves examining the underlying assumptions behind actions in response to a crisis. Triple-loop learning involves challenging and changing the fundamental values and norms that guide action. Triple-loop learning has the potential to induce a paradigm shift in disaster management, thereby changing the overall approach, strategy and practical actions of disaster management [ 132 ].

Scholars have long recognized the significant role of social learning in adaptive governance [ 78 , 133 ]. Researchers have employed a variety of metaphors to elucidate the concept of social learning, and have identified a multitude of roles and functions of social learning in adaptive governance [ 134 ]. Previous studies have primarily examined the role through which various forms of social learning contribute to adaptive governance and the development of system resilience [ 32 , 78 , 135 ]. Moreover, researchers have increasingly emphasized the importance of institutionalizing social learning, arguing that it serves as a pathway to successful adaptive governance [ 136 ].

4 Discussion

As one of the most widely used theories in the field of environmental governance and social ecology, adaptive governance has attracted the attention of an increasing number of researchers and practitioners [ 137 , 138 ], there is a high probability that the number of adaptive governance papers will continue to grow in the future. For gaining a deeper understanding of the current state and trends of research in the field of adaptive governance, scientometric techniques such as co-author analysis, co-word analysis, co-citation analysis, and cluster analysis were used to provide an overview of adaptive governance.

4.1 General information

The research on adaptive governance has predominantly been conducted in developed countries/regions. Leading the field are countries such as the USA, Australia, England, Canada, the Netherlands, and Sweden. This indicates a deficiency in the existing literature on adaptive governance in the Global South. Moreover, the potential of adaptive governance for environmental governance in the Global South has yet to be fully realized. Adaptive governance is rooted in the developed economies of the world, and researchers inevitably question its suitability for other economic and socio-political environments [ 22 ]. Bridging this gap presents a valuable opportunity to apply the theoretical and conceptual frameworks of adaptive governance developed in developed countries to research conducted in developing countries. The socio-economic-political aspects of the Global North are different from those of the Global South, which means that adaptive governance requires modifying frameworks in terms of policies, technologies and solutions in line with the Global South [ 139 ].

Based on the findings, it is evident that universities are at the forefront of studies on adaptive governance, yet there is a significant gap in the form of deeper engagement with industry and governmental organizations. Adaptive governance emphasizes the involvement and collaboration of scientific research, government, industry and multiple stakeholders in a continuous problem-solving process [ 6 , 7 , 140 ]. In the realm of future research on adaptive governance, it is crucial to enhance collaboration among industry, academia, and government organizations, which can ensure that our research outcomes are not only more targeted but also highly practical. Moreover, such an interdisciplinary approach can stimulate a broader spectrum of research interests within the field. For instance, integrating adaptive governance with digital technology could pave the way for innovative and groundbreaking research outcomes.

4.2 Research bases and hotspots

This study explores the research bases and hotspots in the adaptive governance area, focusing on two aspects: Literature co-citation analysis and keyword co-occurrence analysis.

Through the analysis of cited literature and clusters, this study has revealed that "adaptive governance", "adaptive management", "adaptive co-management", "social capital", "social-ecological systems", "dynamic systems theory", "adaptive capacity", "climate change", "local knowledge" are the research bases in the adaptive governance research field. Within the adaptive governance research field, adaptive governance systematically integrates adaptive management into political processes. Meanwhile, adaptive co-management has been interchangeably used to define adaptive governance, forming a core foundation for research [ 86 ]. The three concepts of "Adaptive governance", "adaptive management" and "adaptive co-management" collectively comprise the fundamental principles of adaptive governance research. Further, adaptive governance is seen as a pathway to achieving the desired end goal of adaptive capacity, gaining widespread support for its responsiveness to climate change adaptation and complex ecological systems [ 141 , 142 ]. Consequently, "social-ecological systems", "dynamic systems theory", "adaptive capacity" and “climate change" contribute significantly to the research on adaptive governance. In addition, in social–ecological systems, where local users and managers hold crucial knowledge, building social capital becomes a defining characteristic or key method of adaptive governance [ 4 , 143 ]. Thus, "local knowledge" and "social capital" emerge as integral components of the foundation of adaptive governance research.

The co-occurrence analysis of keywords can help grasp quickly the research hotspots of a specific research field [ 144 , 145 ]. Based on the results of the co-occurrence analysis of keywords, five main research topics in the field of adaptive governance were identified, including the concept of adaptive governance, environmental governance, social-ecological systems, climate change adaptation and social learning. We found that the research bases and research hotspots of adaptive governance are somewhat similar and highly interrelated. This suggests that themes related to the connotations of adaptive governance, environmental governance, social-ecological systems, climate change adaptation and social learning have received sustained attention from scholars. The ultimate goal of adaptive governance is to build resilience in a desirable regime [ 146 ]. To foster resilient communities, cities and societies, as well as sustainable global development, these topics above in the field of adaptive governance will receive long-lasting attention and research in the future.

In addition, empirical research on the contribution of social learning to adaptive governance and resilience remains limited [ 32 , 147 ]. Conceptual and methodological research on social learning and its relationship to adaptive governance has progressed sufficiently to facilitate detailed empirical research. This should concentrate on how attempts at social learning can be made more effective, for example, through the utilisation of digital technologies to facilitate the learning process. Moreover, scholars' research on adaptive governance evaluation is more limited and has not yet become a hotspot of adaptive governance research. To achieve effective adaptive governance, assessment of processes and outcomes needs to be seen as a core element [ 14 ]. Future research should strengthen the study of the adaptive governance evaluation, which is the key to monitoring, learning and improvement in the adaptive governance process. Of course, because adaptive governance embraces uncertainty, it is challenging to accurately assess the process and outcomes of adaptive governance.

This study intuitively provides a more comprehensive and holistic knowledge map to enhance the existing adaptive governance knowledge system, some limitations have been considered. Firstly, our findings are constrained by the only use of the Web of Science core collection database, thus some data that is not in this database may has been missed. Secondly, this paper does not incorporate grey literature on adaptive governance, in particular relevant local case studies, local knowledge systems and governance approaches to adaptive governance. Additionally, our analysis only considered documents written in English. Despite the extensive collection, screening and analysis of formal publications such as academic journals and conference papers, it is difficult to avoid omitting some relevant literature that has been published in informal literature or has not been widely cited. Consequently, caution has been maintained in summarising general trends in the field of adaptive governance over the past two decades. It is worth noting that despite these limitations, this paper can provide an initial overview of the achievements and developments in adaptive governance over the past 20 years by analyzing and summarising the existing literature and identifying important themes and trends, highlight issues that have not yet been explored in depth in the body of knowledge in the field.

5 Conclusion

In this study, we conducted a scientometric analysis to provide helpful insights into adaptive governance research based on data from 3274 literature sources retrieved from the WOS core collection from 2003 to 2022.

The results showed that the research on adaptive governance had grown linearly during the last two decades, especially with the advancement of the research on the socio-ecological theory and resilience theory. Moreover, developed countries, including the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, the Netherlands, Sweden, and others, have exerted a considerable influence on the evolution of the field of adaptive governance, making notable contributions. The examination of the potential contribution of adaptive governance to the achievement of the sustainable development goals of the global South will be an important research topic in the future, particularly concerning poverty reduction, disaster mitigation and environmental sustainability.

The results also provided valuable information on the scientific output, core authors, significant institutions, high-impact journals, research cooperation networks, intellectual base, high frequency keywords, research topics, emerging trends and citations of the research on adaptive governance, which can enable scholars to understand the current status and trends of impactful research carried out by researchers, research institutes, and countries in the field.

In addition, the literature on adaptive governance concentrated on environmental studies, environmental sciences, and ecology, which was proved by the most cited papers. Knowledge from multidisciplinary fields contributes to the development of adaptive governance research. Exploring how big data analytics and digital technologies can facilitate evidence-based decision-making processes within an adaptive governance framework may also be a future research direction, that enables policymakers to use real-time data to develop and implement informed adaptive governance policies.

Data availability

The datasets are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the editor and three reviewers for their helpful comments on the article.

This work was supported by the Key Project of China Ministry of Education for Philosophy and Social Science under Big Data Driven Risk Research on City’s Public Safety [Grant No. 16JZD023]; National Social Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 21&ZD163).

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Zhao, G., Hui, X., Lu, Y. et al. Progress in adaptive governance research and hotspot analysis: a global scientometric visualization analysis. Discov Sustain 5 , 234 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43621-024-00435-8

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Peer Review in Scientific Publications: Benefits, Critiques, & A Survival Guide

Jacalyn kelly.

1 Clinical Biochemistry, Department of Pediatric Laboratory Medicine, The Hospital for Sick Children, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Tara Sadeghieh

Khosrow adeli.

2 Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

3 Chair, Communications and Publications Division (CPD), International Federation for Sick Clinical Chemistry (IFCC), Milan, Italy

The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding publication of this article.

Peer review has been defined as a process of subjecting an author’s scholarly work, research or ideas to the scrutiny of others who are experts in the same field. It functions to encourage authors to meet the accepted high standards of their discipline and to control the dissemination of research data to ensure that unwarranted claims, unacceptable interpretations or personal views are not published without prior expert review. Despite its wide-spread use by most journals, the peer review process has also been widely criticised due to the slowness of the process to publish new findings and due to perceived bias by the editors and/or reviewers. Within the scientific community, peer review has become an essential component of the academic writing process. It helps ensure that papers published in scientific journals answer meaningful research questions and draw accurate conclusions based on professionally executed experimentation. Submission of low quality manuscripts has become increasingly prevalent, and peer review acts as a filter to prevent this work from reaching the scientific community. The major advantage of a peer review process is that peer-reviewed articles provide a trusted form of scientific communication. Since scientific knowledge is cumulative and builds on itself, this trust is particularly important. Despite the positive impacts of peer review, critics argue that the peer review process stifles innovation in experimentation, and acts as a poor screen against plagiarism. Despite its downfalls, there has not yet been a foolproof system developed to take the place of peer review, however, researchers have been looking into electronic means of improving the peer review process. Unfortunately, the recent explosion in online only/electronic journals has led to mass publication of a large number of scientific articles with little or no peer review. This poses significant risk to advances in scientific knowledge and its future potential. The current article summarizes the peer review process, highlights the pros and cons associated with different types of peer review, and describes new methods for improving peer review.

WHAT IS PEER REVIEW AND WHAT IS ITS PURPOSE?

Peer Review is defined as “a process of subjecting an author’s scholarly work, research or ideas to the scrutiny of others who are experts in the same field” ( 1 ). Peer review is intended to serve two primary purposes. Firstly, it acts as a filter to ensure that only high quality research is published, especially in reputable journals, by determining the validity, significance and originality of the study. Secondly, peer review is intended to improve the quality of manuscripts that are deemed suitable for publication. Peer reviewers provide suggestions to authors on how to improve the quality of their manuscripts, and also identify any errors that need correcting before publication.

HISTORY OF PEER REVIEW

The concept of peer review was developed long before the scholarly journal. In fact, the peer review process is thought to have been used as a method of evaluating written work since ancient Greece ( 2 ). The peer review process was first described by a physician named Ishaq bin Ali al-Rahwi of Syria, who lived from 854-931 CE, in his book Ethics of the Physician ( 2 ). There, he stated that physicians must take notes describing the state of their patients’ medical conditions upon each visit. Following treatment, the notes were scrutinized by a local medical council to determine whether the physician had met the required standards of medical care. If the medical council deemed that the appropriate standards were not met, the physician in question could receive a lawsuit from the maltreated patient ( 2 ).

The invention of the printing press in 1453 allowed written documents to be distributed to the general public ( 3 ). At this time, it became more important to regulate the quality of the written material that became publicly available, and editing by peers increased in prevalence. In 1620, Francis Bacon wrote the work Novum Organum, where he described what eventually became known as the first universal method for generating and assessing new science ( 3 ). His work was instrumental in shaping the Scientific Method ( 3 ). In 1665, the French Journal des sçavans and the English Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society were the first scientific journals to systematically publish research results ( 4 ). Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society is thought to be the first journal to formalize the peer review process in 1665 ( 5 ), however, it is important to note that peer review was initially introduced to help editors decide which manuscripts to publish in their journals, and at that time it did not serve to ensure the validity of the research ( 6 ). It did not take long for the peer review process to evolve, and shortly thereafter papers were distributed to reviewers with the intent of authenticating the integrity of the research study before publication. The Royal Society of Edinburgh adhered to the following peer review process, published in their Medical Essays and Observations in 1731: “Memoirs sent by correspondence are distributed according to the subject matter to those members who are most versed in these matters. The report of their identity is not known to the author.” ( 7 ). The Royal Society of London adopted this review procedure in 1752 and developed the “Committee on Papers” to review manuscripts before they were published in Philosophical Transactions ( 6 ).

Peer review in the systematized and institutionalized form has developed immensely since the Second World War, at least partly due to the large increase in scientific research during this period ( 7 ). It is now used not only to ensure that a scientific manuscript is experimentally and ethically sound, but also to determine which papers sufficiently meet the journal’s standards of quality and originality before publication. Peer review is now standard practice by most credible scientific journals, and is an essential part of determining the credibility and quality of work submitted.

IMPACT OF THE PEER REVIEW PROCESS

Peer review has become the foundation of the scholarly publication system because it effectively subjects an author’s work to the scrutiny of other experts in the field. Thus, it encourages authors to strive to produce high quality research that will advance the field. Peer review also supports and maintains integrity and authenticity in the advancement of science. A scientific hypothesis or statement is generally not accepted by the academic community unless it has been published in a peer-reviewed journal ( 8 ). The Institute for Scientific Information ( ISI ) only considers journals that are peer-reviewed as candidates to receive Impact Factors. Peer review is a well-established process which has been a formal part of scientific communication for over 300 years.

OVERVIEW OF THE PEER REVIEW PROCESS

The peer review process begins when a scientist completes a research study and writes a manuscript that describes the purpose, experimental design, results, and conclusions of the study. The scientist then submits this paper to a suitable journal that specializes in a relevant research field, a step referred to as pre-submission. The editors of the journal will review the paper to ensure that the subject matter is in line with that of the journal, and that it fits with the editorial platform. Very few papers pass this initial evaluation. If the journal editors feel the paper sufficiently meets these requirements and is written by a credible source, they will send the paper to accomplished researchers in the field for a formal peer review. Peer reviewers are also known as referees (this process is summarized in Figure 1 ). The role of the editor is to select the most appropriate manuscripts for the journal, and to implement and monitor the peer review process. Editors must ensure that peer reviews are conducted fairly, and in an effective and timely manner. They must also ensure that there are no conflicts of interest involved in the peer review process.

Overview of the review process

When a reviewer is provided with a paper, he or she reads it carefully and scrutinizes it to evaluate the validity of the science, the quality of the experimental design, and the appropriateness of the methods used. The reviewer also assesses the significance of the research, and judges whether the work will contribute to advancement in the field by evaluating the importance of the findings, and determining the originality of the research. Additionally, reviewers identify any scientific errors and references that are missing or incorrect. Peer reviewers give recommendations to the editor regarding whether the paper should be accepted, rejected, or improved before publication in the journal. The editor will mediate author-referee discussion in order to clarify the priority of certain referee requests, suggest areas that can be strengthened, and overrule reviewer recommendations that are beyond the study’s scope ( 9 ). If the paper is accepted, as per suggestion by the peer reviewer, the paper goes into the production stage, where it is tweaked and formatted by the editors, and finally published in the scientific journal. An overview of the review process is presented in Figure 1 .

WHO CONDUCTS REVIEWS?

Peer reviews are conducted by scientific experts with specialized knowledge on the content of the manuscript, as well as by scientists with a more general knowledge base. Peer reviewers can be anyone who has competence and expertise in the subject areas that the journal covers. Reviewers can range from young and up-and-coming researchers to old masters in the field. Often, the young reviewers are the most responsive and deliver the best quality reviews, though this is not always the case. On average, a reviewer will conduct approximately eight reviews per year, according to a study on peer review by the Publishing Research Consortium (PRC) ( 7 ). Journals will often have a pool of reviewers with diverse backgrounds to allow for many different perspectives. They will also keep a rather large reviewer bank, so that reviewers do not get burnt out, overwhelmed or time constrained from reviewing multiple articles simultaneously.

WHY DO REVIEWERS REVIEW?

Referees are typically not paid to conduct peer reviews and the process takes considerable effort, so the question is raised as to what incentive referees have to review at all. Some feel an academic duty to perform reviews, and are of the mentality that if their peers are expected to review their papers, then they should review the work of their peers as well. Reviewers may also have personal contacts with editors, and may want to assist as much as possible. Others review to keep up-to-date with the latest developments in their field, and reading new scientific papers is an effective way to do so. Some scientists use peer review as an opportunity to advance their own research as it stimulates new ideas and allows them to read about new experimental techniques. Other reviewers are keen on building associations with prestigious journals and editors and becoming part of their community, as sometimes reviewers who show dedication to the journal are later hired as editors. Some scientists see peer review as a chance to become aware of the latest research before their peers, and thus be first to develop new insights from the material. Finally, in terms of career development, peer reviewing can be desirable as it is often noted on one’s resume or CV. Many institutions consider a researcher’s involvement in peer review when assessing their performance for promotions ( 11 ). Peer reviewing can also be an effective way for a scientist to show their superiors that they are committed to their scientific field ( 5 ).

ARE REVIEWERS KEEN TO REVIEW?

A 2009 international survey of 4000 peer reviewers conducted by the charity Sense About Science at the British Science Festival at the University of Surrey, found that 90% of reviewers were keen to peer review ( 12 ). One third of respondents to the survey said they were happy to review up to five papers per year, and an additional one third of respondents were happy to review up to ten.

HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO REVIEW ONE PAPER?

On average, it takes approximately six hours to review one paper ( 12 ), however, this number may vary greatly depending on the content of the paper and the nature of the peer reviewer. One in every 100 participants in the “Sense About Science” survey claims to have taken more than 100 hours to review their last paper ( 12 ).

HOW TO DETERMINE IF A JOURNAL IS PEER REVIEWED

Ulrichsweb is a directory that provides information on over 300,000 periodicals, including information regarding which journals are peer reviewed ( 13 ). After logging into the system using an institutional login (eg. from the University of Toronto), search terms, journal titles or ISSN numbers can be entered into the search bar. The database provides the title, publisher, and country of origin of the journal, and indicates whether the journal is still actively publishing. The black book symbol (labelled ‘refereed’) reveals that the journal is peer reviewed.

THE EVALUATION CRITERIA FOR PEER REVIEW OF SCIENTIFIC PAPERS

As previously mentioned, when a reviewer receives a scientific manuscript, he/she will first determine if the subject matter is well suited for the content of the journal. The reviewer will then consider whether the research question is important and original, a process which may be aided by a literature scan of review articles.

Scientific papers submitted for peer review usually follow a specific structure that begins with the title, followed by the abstract, introduction, methodology, results, discussion, conclusions, and references. The title must be descriptive and include the concept and organism investigated, and potentially the variable manipulated and the systems used in the study. The peer reviewer evaluates if the title is descriptive enough, and ensures that it is clear and concise. A study by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) published by the Oxford University Press in 2006 indicated that the title of a manuscript plays a significant role in determining reader interest, as 72% of respondents said they could usually judge whether an article will be of interest to them based on the title and the author, while 13% of respondents claimed to always be able to do so ( 14 ).

The abstract is a summary of the paper, which briefly mentions the background or purpose, methods, key results, and major conclusions of the study. The peer reviewer assesses whether the abstract is sufficiently informative and if the content of the abstract is consistent with the rest of the paper. The NAR study indicated that 40% of respondents could determine whether an article would be of interest to them based on the abstract alone 60-80% of the time, while 32% could judge an article based on the abstract 80-100% of the time ( 14 ). This demonstrates that the abstract alone is often used to assess the value of an article.

The introduction of a scientific paper presents the research question in the context of what is already known about the topic, in order to identify why the question being studied is of interest to the scientific community, and what gap in knowledge the study aims to fill ( 15 ). The introduction identifies the study’s purpose and scope, briefly describes the general methods of investigation, and outlines the hypothesis and predictions ( 15 ). The peer reviewer determines whether the introduction provides sufficient background information on the research topic, and ensures that the research question and hypothesis are clearly identifiable.

The methods section describes the experimental procedures, and explains why each experiment was conducted. The methods section also includes the equipment and reagents used in the investigation. The methods section should be detailed enough that it can be used it to repeat the experiment ( 15 ). Methods are written in the past tense and in the active voice. The peer reviewer assesses whether the appropriate methods were used to answer the research question, and if they were written with sufficient detail. If information is missing from the methods section, it is the peer reviewer’s job to identify what details need to be added.

The results section is where the outcomes of the experiment and trends in the data are explained without judgement, bias or interpretation ( 15 ). This section can include statistical tests performed on the data, as well as figures and tables in addition to the text. The peer reviewer ensures that the results are described with sufficient detail, and determines their credibility. Reviewers also confirm that the text is consistent with the information presented in tables and figures, and that all figures and tables included are important and relevant ( 15 ). The peer reviewer will also make sure that table and figure captions are appropriate both contextually and in length, and that tables and figures present the data accurately.

The discussion section is where the data is analyzed. Here, the results are interpreted and related to past studies ( 15 ). The discussion describes the meaning and significance of the results in terms of the research question and hypothesis, and states whether the hypothesis was supported or rejected. This section may also provide possible explanations for unusual results and suggestions for future research ( 15 ). The discussion should end with a conclusions section that summarizes the major findings of the investigation. The peer reviewer determines whether the discussion is clear and focused, and whether the conclusions are an appropriate interpretation of the results. Reviewers also ensure that the discussion addresses the limitations of the study, any anomalies in the results, the relationship of the study to previous research, and the theoretical implications and practical applications of the study.

The references are found at the end of the paper, and list all of the information sources cited in the text to describe the background, methods, and/or interpret results. Depending on the citation method used, the references are listed in alphabetical order according to author last name, or numbered according to the order in which they appear in the paper. The peer reviewer ensures that references are used appropriately, cited accurately, formatted correctly, and that none are missing.

Finally, the peer reviewer determines whether the paper is clearly written and if the content seems logical. After thoroughly reading through the entire manuscript, they determine whether it meets the journal’s standards for publication,

and whether it falls within the top 25% of papers in its field ( 16 ) to determine priority for publication. An overview of what a peer reviewer looks for when evaluating a manuscript, in order of importance, is presented in Figure 2 .

How a peer review evaluates a manuscript

To increase the chance of success in the peer review process, the author must ensure that the paper fully complies with the journal guidelines before submission. The author must also be open to criticism and suggested revisions, and learn from mistakes made in previous submissions.

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF PEER REVIEW

The peer review process is generally conducted in one of three ways: open review, single-blind review, or double-blind review. In an open review, both the author of the paper and the peer reviewer know one another’s identity. Alternatively, in single-blind review, the reviewer’s identity is kept private, but the author’s identity is revealed to the reviewer. In double-blind review, the identities of both the reviewer and author are kept anonymous. Open peer review is advantageous in that it prevents the reviewer from leaving malicious comments, being careless, or procrastinating completion of the review ( 2 ). It encourages reviewers to be open and honest without being disrespectful. Open reviewing also discourages plagiarism amongst authors ( 2 ). On the other hand, open peer review can also prevent reviewers from being honest for fear of developing bad rapport with the author. The reviewer may withhold or tone down their criticisms in order to be polite ( 2 ). This is especially true when younger reviewers are given a more esteemed author’s work, in which case the reviewer may be hesitant to provide criticism for fear that it will damper their relationship with a superior ( 2 ). According to the Sense About Science survey, editors find that completely open reviewing decreases the number of people willing to participate, and leads to reviews of little value ( 12 ). In the aforementioned study by the PRC, only 23% of authors surveyed had experience with open peer review ( 7 ).

Single-blind peer review is by far the most common. In the PRC study, 85% of authors surveyed had experience with single-blind peer review ( 7 ). This method is advantageous as the reviewer is more likely to provide honest feedback when their identity is concealed ( 2 ). This allows the reviewer to make independent decisions without the influence of the author ( 2 ). The main disadvantage of reviewer anonymity, however, is that reviewers who receive manuscripts on subjects similar to their own research may be tempted to delay completing the review in order to publish their own data first ( 2 ).

Double-blind peer review is advantageous as it prevents the reviewer from being biased against the author based on their country of origin or previous work ( 2 ). This allows the paper to be judged based on the quality of the content, rather than the reputation of the author. The Sense About Science survey indicates that 76% of researchers think double-blind peer review is a good idea ( 12 ), and the PRC survey indicates that 45% of authors have had experience with double-blind peer review ( 7 ). The disadvantage of double-blind peer review is that, especially in niche areas of research, it can sometimes be easy for the reviewer to determine the identity of the author based on writing style, subject matter or self-citation, and thus, impart bias ( 2 ).

Masking the author’s identity from peer reviewers, as is the case in double-blind review, is generally thought to minimize bias and maintain review quality. A study by Justice et al. in 1998 investigated whether masking author identity affected the quality of the review ( 17 ). One hundred and eighteen manuscripts were randomized; 26 were peer reviewed as normal, and 92 were moved into the ‘intervention’ arm, where editor quality assessments were completed for 77 manuscripts and author quality assessments were completed for 40 manuscripts ( 17 ). There was no perceived difference in quality between the masked and unmasked reviews. Additionally, the masking itself was often unsuccessful, especially with well-known authors ( 17 ). However, a previous study conducted by McNutt et al. had different results ( 18 ). In this case, blinding was successful 73% of the time, and they found that when author identity was masked, the quality of review was slightly higher ( 18 ). Although Justice et al. argued that this difference was too small to be consequential, their study targeted only biomedical journals, and the results cannot be generalized to journals of a different subject matter ( 17 ). Additionally, there were problems masking the identities of well-known authors, introducing a flaw in the methods. Regardless, Justice et al. concluded that masking author identity from reviewers may not improve review quality ( 17 ).

In addition to open, single-blind and double-blind peer review, there are two experimental forms of peer review. In some cases, following publication, papers may be subjected to post-publication peer review. As many papers are now published online, the scientific community has the opportunity to comment on these papers, engage in online discussions and post a formal review. For example, online publishers PLOS and BioMed Central have enabled scientists to post comments on published papers if they are registered users of the site ( 10 ). Philica is another journal launched with this experimental form of peer review. Only 8% of authors surveyed in the PRC study had experience with post-publication review ( 7 ). Another experimental form of peer review called Dynamic Peer Review has also emerged. Dynamic peer review is conducted on websites such as Naboj, which allow scientists to conduct peer reviews on articles in the preprint media ( 19 ). The peer review is conducted on repositories and is a continuous process, which allows the public to see both the article and the reviews as the article is being developed ( 19 ). Dynamic peer review helps prevent plagiarism as the scientific community will already be familiar with the work before the peer reviewed version appears in print ( 19 ). Dynamic review also reduces the time lag between manuscript submission and publishing. An example of a preprint server is the ‘arXiv’ developed by Paul Ginsparg in 1991, which is used primarily by physicists ( 19 ). These alternative forms of peer review are still un-established and experimental. Traditional peer review is time-tested and still highly utilized. All methods of peer review have their advantages and deficiencies, and all are prone to error.

PEER REVIEW OF OPEN ACCESS JOURNALS

Open access (OA) journals are becoming increasingly popular as they allow the potential for widespread distribution of publications in a timely manner ( 20 ). Nevertheless, there can be issues regarding the peer review process of open access journals. In a study published in Science in 2013, John Bohannon submitted 304 slightly different versions of a fictional scientific paper (written by a fake author, working out of a non-existent institution) to a selected group of OA journals. This study was performed in order to determine whether papers submitted to OA journals are properly reviewed before publication in comparison to subscription-based journals. The journals in this study were selected from the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and Biall’s List, a list of journals which are potentially predatory, and all required a fee for publishing ( 21 ). Of the 304 journals, 157 accepted a fake paper, suggesting that acceptance was based on financial interest rather than the quality of article itself, while 98 journals promptly rejected the fakes ( 21 ). Although this study highlights useful information on the problems associated with lower quality publishers that do not have an effective peer review system in place, the article also generalizes the study results to all OA journals, which can be detrimental to the general perception of OA journals. There were two limitations of the study that made it impossible to accurately determine the relationship between peer review and OA journals: 1) there was no control group (subscription-based journals), and 2) the fake papers were sent to a non-randomized selection of journals, resulting in bias.

JOURNAL ACCEPTANCE RATES

Based on a recent survey, the average acceptance rate for papers submitted to scientific journals is about 50% ( 7 ). Twenty percent of the submitted manuscripts that are not accepted are rejected prior to review, and 30% are rejected following review ( 7 ). Of the 50% accepted, 41% are accepted with the condition of revision, while only 9% are accepted without the request for revision ( 7 ).

SATISFACTION WITH THE PEER REVIEW SYSTEM

Based on a recent survey by the PRC, 64% of academics are satisfied with the current system of peer review, and only 12% claimed to be ‘dissatisfied’ ( 7 ). The large majority, 85%, agreed with the statement that ‘scientific communication is greatly helped by peer review’ ( 7 ). There was a similarly high level of support (83%) for the idea that peer review ‘provides control in scientific communication’ ( 7 ).

HOW TO PEER REVIEW EFFECTIVELY

The following are ten tips on how to be an effective peer reviewer as indicated by Brian Lucey, an expert on the subject ( 22 ):

1) Be professional

Peer review is a mutual responsibility among fellow scientists, and scientists are expected, as part of the academic community, to take part in peer review. If one is to expect others to review their work, they should commit to reviewing the work of others as well, and put effort into it.

2) Be pleasant

If the paper is of low quality, suggest that it be rejected, but do not leave ad hominem comments. There is no benefit to being ruthless.

3) Read the invite

When emailing a scientist to ask them to conduct a peer review, the majority of journals will provide a link to either accept or reject. Do not respond to the email, respond to the link.

4) Be helpful

Suggest how the authors can overcome the shortcomings in their paper. A review should guide the author on what is good and what needs work from the reviewer’s perspective.

5) Be scientific

The peer reviewer plays the role of a scientific peer, not an editor for proofreading or decision-making. Don’t fill a review with comments on editorial and typographic issues. Instead, focus on adding value with scientific knowledge and commenting on the credibility of the research conducted and conclusions drawn. If the paper has a lot of typographical errors, suggest that it be professionally proof edited as part of the review.

6) Be timely

Stick to the timeline given when conducting a peer review. Editors track who is reviewing what and when and will know if someone is late on completing a review. It is important to be timely both out of respect for the journal and the author, as well as to not develop a reputation of being late for review deadlines.

7) Be realistic

The peer reviewer must be realistic about the work presented, the changes they suggest and their role. Peer reviewers may set the bar too high for the paper they are editing by proposing changes that are too ambitious and editors must override them.

8) Be empathetic

Ensure that the review is scientific, helpful and courteous. Be sensitive and respectful with word choice and tone in a review.

Remember that both specialists and generalists can provide valuable insight when peer reviewing. Editors will try to get both specialised and general reviewers for any particular paper to allow for different perspectives. If someone is asked to review, the editor has determined they have a valid and useful role to play, even if the paper is not in their area of expertise.

10) Be organised

A review requires structure and logical flow. A reviewer should proofread their review before submitting it for structural, grammatical and spelling errors as well as for clarity. Most publishers provide short guides on structuring a peer review on their website. Begin with an overview of the proposed improvements; then provide feedback on the paper structure, the quality of data sources and methods of investigation used, the logical flow of argument, and the validity of conclusions drawn. Then provide feedback on style, voice and lexical concerns, with suggestions on how to improve.

In addition, the American Physiology Society (APS) recommends in its Peer Review 101 Handout that peer reviewers should put themselves in both the editor’s and author’s shoes to ensure that they provide what both the editor and the author need and expect ( 11 ). To please the editor, the reviewer should ensure that the peer review is completed on time, and that it provides clear explanations to back up recommendations. To be helpful to the author, the reviewer must ensure that their feedback is constructive. It is suggested that the reviewer take time to think about the paper; they should read it once, wait at least a day, and then re-read it before writing the review ( 11 ). The APS also suggests that Graduate students and researchers pay attention to how peer reviewers edit their work, as well as to what edits they find helpful, in order to learn how to peer review effectively ( 11 ). Additionally, it is suggested that Graduate students practice reviewing by editing their peers’ papers and asking a faculty member for feedback on their efforts. It is recommended that young scientists offer to peer review as often as possible in order to become skilled at the process ( 11 ). The majority of students, fellows and trainees do not get formal training in peer review, but rather learn by observing their mentors. According to the APS, one acquires experience through networking and referrals, and should therefore try to strengthen relationships with journal editors by offering to review manuscripts ( 11 ). The APS also suggests that experienced reviewers provide constructive feedback to students and junior colleagues on their peer review efforts, and encourages them to peer review to demonstrate the importance of this process in improving science ( 11 ).

The peer reviewer should only comment on areas of the manuscript that they are knowledgeable about ( 23 ). If there is any section of the manuscript they feel they are not qualified to review, they should mention this in their comments and not provide further feedback on that section. The peer reviewer is not permitted to share any part of the manuscript with a colleague (even if they may be more knowledgeable in the subject matter) without first obtaining permission from the editor ( 23 ). If a peer reviewer comes across something they are unsure of in the paper, they can consult the literature to try and gain insight. It is important for scientists to remember that if a paper can be improved by the expertise of one of their colleagues, the journal must be informed of the colleague’s help, and approval must be obtained for their colleague to read the protected document. Additionally, the colleague must be identified in the confidential comments to the editor, in order to ensure that he/she is appropriately credited for any contributions ( 23 ). It is the job of the reviewer to make sure that the colleague assisting is aware of the confidentiality of the peer review process ( 23 ). Once the review is complete, the manuscript must be destroyed and cannot be saved electronically by the reviewers ( 23 ).

COMMON ERRORS IN SCIENTIFIC PAPERS

When performing a peer review, there are some common scientific errors to look out for. Most of these errors are violations of logic and common sense: these may include contradicting statements, unwarranted conclusions, suggestion of causation when there is only support for correlation, inappropriate extrapolation, circular reasoning, or pursuit of a trivial question ( 24 ). It is also common for authors to suggest that two variables are different because the effects of one variable are statistically significant while the effects of the other variable are not, rather than directly comparing the two variables ( 24 ). Authors sometimes oversee a confounding variable and do not control for it, or forget to include important details on how their experiments were controlled or the physical state of the organisms studied ( 24 ). Another common fault is the author’s failure to define terms or use words with precision, as these practices can mislead readers ( 24 ). Jargon and/or misused terms can be a serious problem in papers. Inaccurate statements about specific citations are also a common occurrence ( 24 ). Additionally, many studies produce knowledge that can be applied to areas of science outside the scope of the original study, therefore it is better for reviewers to look at the novelty of the idea, conclusions, data, and methodology, rather than scrutinize whether or not the paper answered the specific question at hand ( 24 ). Although it is important to recognize these points, when performing a review it is generally better practice for the peer reviewer to not focus on a checklist of things that could be wrong, but rather carefully identify the problems specific to each paper and continuously ask themselves if anything is missing ( 24 ). An extremely detailed description of how to conduct peer review effectively is presented in the paper How I Review an Original Scientific Article written by Frederic G. Hoppin, Jr. It can be accessed through the American Physiological Society website under the Peer Review Resources section.

CRITICISM OF PEER REVIEW

A major criticism of peer review is that there is little evidence that the process actually works, that it is actually an effective screen for good quality scientific work, and that it actually improves the quality of scientific literature. As a 2002 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association concluded, ‘Editorial peer review, although widely used, is largely untested and its effects are uncertain’ ( 25 ). Critics also argue that peer review is not effective at detecting errors. Highlighting this point, an experiment by Godlee et al. published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) inserted eight deliberate errors into a paper that was nearly ready for publication, and then sent the paper to 420 potential reviewers ( 7 ). Of the 420 reviewers that received the paper, 221 (53%) responded, the average number of errors spotted by reviewers was two, no reviewer spotted more than five errors, and 35 reviewers (16%) did not spot any.

Another criticism of peer review is that the process is not conducted thoroughly by scientific conferences with the goal of obtaining large numbers of submitted papers. Such conferences often accept any paper sent in, regardless of its credibility or the prevalence of errors, because the more papers they accept, the more money they can make from author registration fees ( 26 ). This misconduct was exposed in 2014 by three MIT graduate students by the names of Jeremy Stribling, Dan Aguayo and Maxwell Krohn, who developed a simple computer program called SCIgen that generates nonsense papers and presents them as scientific papers ( 26 ). Subsequently, a nonsense SCIgen paper submitted to a conference was promptly accepted. Nature recently reported that French researcher Cyril Labbé discovered that sixteen SCIgen nonsense papers had been used by the German academic publisher Springer ( 26 ). Over 100 nonsense papers generated by SCIgen were published by the US Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) ( 26 ). Both organisations have been working to remove the papers. Labbé developed a program to detect SCIgen papers and has made it freely available to ensure publishers and conference organizers do not accept nonsense work in the future. It is available at this link: http://scigendetect.on.imag.fr/main.php ( 26 ).

Additionally, peer review is often criticized for being unable to accurately detect plagiarism. However, many believe that detecting plagiarism cannot practically be included as a component of peer review. As explained by Alice Tuff, development manager at Sense About Science, ‘The vast majority of authors and reviewers think peer review should detect plagiarism (81%) but only a minority (38%) think it is capable. The academic time involved in detecting plagiarism through peer review would cause the system to grind to a halt’ ( 27 ). Publishing house Elsevier began developing electronic plagiarism tools with the help of journal editors in 2009 to help improve this issue ( 27 ).

It has also been argued that peer review has lowered research quality by limiting creativity amongst researchers. Proponents of this view claim that peer review has repressed scientists from pursuing innovative research ideas and bold research questions that have the potential to make major advances and paradigm shifts in the field, as they believe that this work will likely be rejected by their peers upon review ( 28 ). Indeed, in some cases peer review may result in rejection of innovative research, as some studies may not seem particularly strong initially, yet may be capable of yielding very interesting and useful developments when examined under different circumstances, or in the light of new information ( 28 ). Scientists that do not believe in peer review argue that the process stifles the development of ingenious ideas, and thus the release of fresh knowledge and new developments into the scientific community.

Another issue that peer review is criticized for, is that there are a limited number of people that are competent to conduct peer review compared to the vast number of papers that need reviewing. An enormous number of papers published (1.3 million papers in 23,750 journals in 2006), but the number of competent peer reviewers available could not have reviewed them all ( 29 ). Thus, people who lack the required expertise to analyze the quality of a research paper are conducting reviews, and weak papers are being accepted as a result. It is now possible to publish any paper in an obscure journal that claims to be peer-reviewed, though the paper or journal itself could be substandard ( 29 ). On a similar note, the US National Library of Medicine indexes 39 journals that specialize in alternative medicine, and though they all identify themselves as “peer-reviewed”, they rarely publish any high quality research ( 29 ). This highlights the fact that peer review of more controversial or specialized work is typically performed by people who are interested and hold similar views or opinions as the author, which can cause bias in their review. For instance, a paper on homeopathy is likely to be reviewed by fellow practicing homeopaths, and thus is likely to be accepted as credible, though other scientists may find the paper to be nonsense ( 29 ). In some cases, papers are initially published, but their credibility is challenged at a later date and they are subsequently retracted. Retraction Watch is a website dedicated to revealing papers that have been retracted after publishing, potentially due to improper peer review ( 30 ).

Additionally, despite its many positive outcomes, peer review is also criticized for being a delay to the dissemination of new knowledge into the scientific community, and as an unpaid-activity that takes scientists’ time away from activities that they would otherwise prioritize, such as research and teaching, for which they are paid ( 31 ). As described by Eva Amsen, Outreach Director for F1000Research, peer review was originally developed as a means of helping editors choose which papers to publish when journals had to limit the number of papers they could print in one issue ( 32 ). However, nowadays most journals are available online, either exclusively or in addition to print, and many journals have very limited printing runs ( 32 ). Since there are no longer page limits to journals, any good work can and should be published. Consequently, being selective for the purpose of saving space in a journal is no longer a valid excuse that peer reviewers can use to reject a paper ( 32 ). However, some reviewers have used this excuse when they have personal ulterior motives, such as getting their own research published first.

RECENT INITIATIVES TOWARDS IMPROVING PEER REVIEW

F1000Research was launched in January 2013 by Faculty of 1000 as an open access journal that immediately publishes papers (after an initial check to ensure that the paper is in fact produced by a scientist and has not been plagiarised), and then conducts transparent post-publication peer review ( 32 ). F1000Research aims to prevent delays in new science reaching the academic community that are caused by prolonged publication times ( 32 ). It also aims to make peer reviewing more fair by eliminating any anonymity, which prevents reviewers from delaying the completion of a review so they can publish their own similar work first ( 32 ). F1000Research offers completely open peer review, where everything is published, including the name of the reviewers, their review reports, and the editorial decision letters ( 32 ).

PeerJ was founded by Jason Hoyt and Peter Binfield in June 2012 as an open access, peer reviewed scholarly journal for the Biological and Medical Sciences ( 33 ). PeerJ selects articles to publish based only on scientific and methodological soundness, not on subjective determinants of ‘impact ’, ‘novelty’ or ‘interest’ ( 34 ). It works on a “lifetime publishing plan” model which charges scientists for publishing plans that give them lifetime rights to publish with PeerJ, rather than charging them per publication ( 34 ). PeerJ also encourages open peer review, and authors are given the option to post the full peer review history of their submission with their published article ( 34 ). PeerJ also offers a pre-print review service called PeerJ Pre-prints, in which paper drafts are reviewed before being sent to PeerJ to publish ( 34 ).

Rubriq is an independent peer review service designed by Shashi Mudunuri and Keith Collier to improve the peer review system ( 35 ). Rubriq is intended to decrease redundancy in the peer review process so that the time lost in redundant reviewing can be put back into research ( 35 ). According to Keith Collier, over 15 million hours are lost each year to redundant peer review, as papers get rejected from one journal and are subsequently submitted to a less prestigious journal where they are reviewed again ( 35 ). Authors often have to submit their manuscript to multiple journals, and are often rejected multiple times before they find the right match. This process could take months or even years ( 35 ). Rubriq makes peer review portable in order to help authors choose the journal that is best suited for their manuscript from the beginning, thus reducing the time before their paper is published ( 35 ). Rubriq operates under an author-pay model, in which the author pays a fee and their manuscript undergoes double-blind peer review by three expert academic reviewers using a standardized scorecard ( 35 ). The majority of the author’s fee goes towards a reviewer honorarium ( 35 ). The papers are also screened for plagiarism using iThenticate ( 35 ). Once the manuscript has been reviewed by the three experts, the most appropriate journal for submission is determined based on the topic and quality of the paper ( 35 ). The paper is returned to the author in 1-2 weeks with the Rubriq Report ( 35 ). The author can then submit their paper to the suggested journal with the Rubriq Report attached. The Rubriq Report will give the journal editors a much stronger incentive to consider the paper as it shows that three experts have recommended the paper to them ( 35 ). Rubriq also has its benefits for reviewers; the Rubriq scorecard gives structure to the peer review process, and thus makes it consistent and efficient, which decreases time and stress for the reviewer. Reviewers also receive feedback on their reviews and most significantly, they are compensated for their time ( 35 ). Journals also benefit, as they receive pre-screened papers, reducing the number of papers sent to their own reviewers, which often end up rejected ( 35 ). This can reduce reviewer fatigue, and allow only higher-quality articles to be sent to their peer reviewers ( 35 ).

According to Eva Amsen, peer review and scientific publishing are moving in a new direction, in which all papers will be posted online, and a post-publication peer review will take place that is independent of specific journal criteria and solely focused on improving paper quality ( 32 ). Journals will then choose papers that they find relevant based on the peer reviews and publish those papers as a collection ( 32 ). In this process, peer review and individual journals are uncoupled ( 32 ). In Keith Collier’s opinion, post-publication peer review is likely to become more prevalent as a complement to pre-publication peer review, but not as a replacement ( 35 ). Post-publication peer review will not serve to identify errors and fraud but will provide an additional measurement of impact ( 35 ). Collier also believes that as journals and publishers consolidate into larger systems, there will be stronger potential for “cascading” and shared peer review ( 35 ).

CONCLUDING REMARKS

Peer review has become fundamental in assisting editors in selecting credible, high quality, novel and interesting research papers to publish in scientific journals and to ensure the correction of any errors or issues present in submitted papers. Though the peer review process still has some flaws and deficiencies, a more suitable screening method for scientific papers has not yet been proposed or developed. Researchers have begun and must continue to look for means of addressing the current issues with peer review to ensure that it is a full-proof system that ensures only quality research papers are released into the scientific community.

• Open access
• Published: 09 September 2024

Research status and frontiers of renal denervation for hypertension: a bibliometric analysis from 2004 to 2023

• Jiaran Li 1   na1 ,
• Xiaohan Zhang 1   na1 ,
• Yuchen Jiang 1 ,
• Huan Wang 1 ,
• Xiongyi Gao 1 ,
• Yuanhui Hu 1 &

Journal of Health, Population and Nutrition volume  43 , Article number:  142 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

Metrics details

Renal Denervation (RDN) is a novel non-pharmacological technique to treat hypertension. This technique lowers blood pressure by blocking the sympathetic nerve fibers around the renal artery, then causing a decrease in system sympathetic nerve excitability. This study aimed to visualize and analyze research hotspots and development trends in the field of RDN for hypertension through bibliometric analysis.

In total, 1479 studies were retrieved on the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC) database from 2004 to 2023. Using CiteSpace (6.2.R4) and VOSviewer (1.6.18), visualization maps were generated by relevant literature in the field of RDN for hypertension to demonstrate the research status and frontiers.

The number of publications was found to be generally increasing. Europe and the United States were the first countries to carry out research on different techniques and related RDN clinical trials. The efficacy and safety of RDN have been repeatedly verified and gained increasing attention. The study involves multiple disciplines, including the cardiovascular system, peripheral vascular disease, and physiological pathology, among others. Research hotspots focus on elucidating the mechanism of RDN in the treatment of hypertension and the advantages of RDN in appliance therapy. Additionally, the research frontiers include improvement of RDN instruments and techniques, as well as exploration of the therapeutic effects of RDN in diseases with increased sympathetic nerve activity.

The research hotspots and frontiers reflect the status and development trend of RDN in hypertension. In the future, it is necessary to strengthen international collaboration and cooperation, conduct long-term clinical studies with a large sample size, and continuously improve RDN technology and devices. These measures will provide new options for more patients with hypertension, thereby improving their quality of life.

Introduction

Hypertension is an extremely common chronic condition and public health event, affecting roughly 25% of the population [ 1 ].Poor blood pressure control may occur due to irregular adherence to pharmacological treatments and the subsequent lifestyle modifications required. This leads to increased risk for adverse cardiovascular events, longer hospital stays, and increased cost of treatment [ 2 , 3 ].The development of catheter-based renal denervation (RDN) is expected to address this limitation [ 4 , 5 ].

A strong correlation between blood pressure levels and the excessive activity of the sympathetic nervous system has been observed [ 6 , 7 ]. Activation of efferent renal sympathetic nerves results in renal arteriolar vasoconstriction, reducing renal blood flow and the release of renin [ 8 ]. Additionally, this process results in water-sodium retention due to activation of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS), thereby increasing plasma volume and blood pressure [ 9 ]. RDN employs various techniques, including the use of radiofrequency energy, freezing energy, chemical denervation, or ultrasound-guided approaches. This technique aims to disrupt and interrupt the activity of the renal sympathetic nervous system and ultimately inhibit the sympathetic system throughout the body, leading to a reduction in arterial blood pressure [ 10 ]. According to the European Society of Hypertension (ESH) guidelines [ 11 ], RDN is a class II (level of evidence B) recommendation, and has become a therapeutic option for patients with uncontrolled or resistant hypertension.

The bibliometric analysis first emerged in the early 20th century and has become widely used as an analytical technique [ 12 , 13 ]. This method can evaluate the productivity of countries, institutions, and authors to track the development trends and hotspots in a specific research field [ 14 ]. The visualization software CiteSpace (6.2.R4) and VOSviewer (1.6.18) are widely used in the field of bibliometrics. In this paper, CiteSpace was mainly used to create visual graphs of literature keywords, and VOSviewer was used to visually analyze basic information such as countries, authors, etc. Hence, this study aimed to conduct a comprehensive summary and analysis of the field of treatment of hypertension in RDN.

Materials and methods

Data retrieval and collection.

Research data were obtained from the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC) database, which covers comprehensive research fields [ 15 ]. The retrieval strategy was (TS = (Hypertension OR “high blood pressure” OR hypertonic OR HPN OR HBP OR hyperpiesis OR hyperpiesia) AND TS= (“Renal Denervation”)) AND LA=(English). The retrieval time was set from January 1, 2004, to August 1, 2023, and 2288 works of literature were initially retrieved. Of these, 383 meeting abstracts, 244 editorial materials, 128 letters, 19 proceeding papers, 11 corrections, 10 early accesses, 9 book chapters, and 5 news items were excluded. Thus, a total of 1479 papers (433 review papers and 1046 research papers) were exported in the form of plain text files and saved in “download_***.txt” format within 1 day (August 9, 2023).

Data analysis

We conducted a visualization analysis of countries, authors, institutions, and journals through the VOSviewer software. A lower distance between the nodes in the visualization map corresponded to a closer similarity between the two themes [ 16 ]. In addition, to observe cooperation between countries more clearly, country co-occurrence maps formed by VOSviewer were first exported in GML format. Following this, Scimago Graphica software was used for the subsequent operations, resulting in the generation of a geographical distribution map of country cooperation.

CiteSpace software performs visualization analysis of keywords, to demonstrate the development process and trends in the research field. In the maps, the size of the node is related to the frequency of the keyword, the purple and the red rings in the outer area of the node represent the centrality and burstiness of the keyword, respectively [ 17 ]. The centrality of the keyword reflects the important role of keywords in this field, while its burstiness indicates the research hotspots.

The 1479 research papers used in this study were published across 351 journals in the period between 2004 and 2023, written by 5359 authors from 1890 organizations in 69 countries, and cited by 29,398 literature documents across 3721 journals.

Temporal distribution map of publications

Figure  1 shows the three phases in the development of this research field. The first phase, from 2004 to 2012, was characterized by an annual output of no more than 100 articles; this indicates that the field of treatment of hypertension in RDN was in its infancy and did not receive high attention. The number of papers being published increased from 2012 onwards and reached a peak in 2016; this reflected that RDN entered a rapid development stage between 2012 and 2017.

This was found to be related to the neutral results of the SYMPLICITY-3 HTN trial in 2014 on one hand, and the increased number of patients with hypertension on the other [ 18 ]. Meanwhile, research on hypertension in RDN reached the maturation stage in 2017. According to a citation analysis of 1479 articles, 29,398 citations were involved between 2004 and 2023, with an average of 29.55 citations per paper (h-index = 92).

The trend of publications from 2004 to 2023

Distribution of co-authorship-countries/regions, institutions, and scholar authors

Two countries (USA and Germany) published more than half of all literature, demonstrating that the study of RDN was investigated more thoroughly in these countries (Table  1 ; Fig.  2 A and C). Figure  2 B shows the locations and collaboration of each country in this field have been shown in Fig.  2 B. America ranked first in total citations and h index, with 559 and 75 respectively. Figure  2 D indicates that the USA and Germany were early starters in the research of this field; although research in Asian countries began relatively later, they have made important contributions to the research field. In 2020, the Asia Renal Denervation Consortium fully affirmed the role of RDN and actively promoted this treatment as the initial choice for hypertension [ 19 ].

Distribution map of countries/regions. A Density visualization of countries. B Collaboration of all countries by Scimago. C Occurrence of contributing countries. D Time overlay of main countries

As shown in Table  2 , five top scholar authors and institutions with the largest number of published research papers were listed. Figure  3 A describes the follow-up survey of patients with or without complications after RDN surgery conducted by Monash University, confirming the safety and efficacy of RDN in clinical applications [ 20 ]. In addition, this university has been involved in many experimental studies on RDN [ 21 ]. Figure  3 B shows inter-agency partnership, with the size of the nodes representing the number of posts and the lines representing the linkages, by dividing the 25 institutions that met the threshold into 2 clusters. As the most representative author, Mahfoud F was involved in the SYMPLICITY HTN-2 randomized clinical trial, and worked on the study of RDN for other cardiovascular diseases [ 22 , 23 ].

Distribution map of institutions and scholar authors. A The occurrence of contributing institutions. B The occurrence of contributing scholar authors

Distribution of disciplines and journals

Figure  4 A shows the top 15 subject categories in the field of RDN for hypertension. As shown in Table  3 ; Fig.  4 B, the journal with the largest number of publications was Hypertension (105 papers), which publishes research on the regulation, clinical treatment, and prevention of hypertension. Hypertension also had the largest number of citations (5936 papers), followed by the European Heart Journal (2606 papers) and Journal of the American College of Cardiology (2498 papers). As the journal with the maximum number of publications and citations, Hypertension is authoritative and scientific in the field of treatment of hypertension in RDN.

Distribution map of subject categories and journals. A Top 15 subject categories in the field of RDN for hypertension. B Occurrence of contributing journals

Distribution of highly cited literature and co-cited reference

The analysis of highly cited literature.

A greater number of citations was understood to indicate greater academic value of the paper. As of August 2023, 24 highly cited studies were finally retrieved, with a total of 7625 citations. Table  4 listed the top 10 most highly cited studies. The most cited study is “A Controlled Trial of Renal Denervation for Resistant Hypertension” published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2014, conducted by Bakris et al. This study was a prospective, randomized, single-blind, randomized, sham-operated, controlled trial (SYMPLICITY HTN-3 clinical trial), conducted to show that RDN surgery for the treatment of resistant hypertension failed to achieve the expected results. This publication caused a great deal of controversy at the time, but also spurred the development of more randomized controlled trials [ 18 ].

Only one review, titled “The Autonomic Nervous System and Hypertension”, describes in detail the effect of the mechanism of adrenergic and vagal abnormalities on the characteristic structure of hypertension, leading to essential hypertension and organic damage [ 24 ]. In this study, Mancia and Grassi noted that the activation of adrenergic nerves is an unstable process, and can be overdriven by the progression of hypertension [ 25 , 26 ]. Moreover, previous studies have confirmed that in the adrenergic system, sympathetic nervous system hyperactivity may be the determinant of blood pressure variability [ 27 , 28 ], This is generally considered an independent risk factor for cardiovascular diseases such as heart failure and severe arrhythmias. In addition to traditional medical therapy, invasive approaches, such as continuous carotid baroreceptor stimulation and renal denervation, have been proven to effectively reduce blood pressure levels in patients with resistant hypertension [ 29 , 30 ], supplementing the mechanism of RDN for hypertension.

The analysis of co-cited references

According to the citation analysis of the publications listed in Fig.  5 A, the top three co-cited references revealed the effectiveness and safety of RDN for treating resistant hypertension through randomized controlled trials. After 6 months of assessing the patient’s blood pressure levels, the efficacy of RDN in the treatment of resistant hypertension was confirmed [ 31 , 32 ]. This study can provide an important clinical rationale for this research field. Using VOSviewer software to visualize and analyze the co-cited references, 25 references reaching the threshold were finally included and co-citation mapping was generated. Figure  5 B shows the division of the 25 kinds of literature into two clusters based on the intensity of collaboration. Most of these were clinical research studies in the field of cardiovascular systems, with a few in the field of physiology.

Distribution map of co-cited reference. A Top 10 local cited references in the field of RDN for hypertension. B Visualization of co-cited references

Distribution of keywords

Analysis of keyword co-occurrence.

Keywords represent the core of the article, and their visual analysis plays an important role in exploring the frontiers and the development directions of this field. Figur6A shows the formation of eight clusters by running with a k-means clustering algorithm. Figure  6 B shows the co-occurrence map of 150 keywords with times of occurrence greater than 15, created using VOSviewer software. Additionally, the top 20 keywords in terms of number of occurrences were also listed in Table  5 . Apart from renal denervation and hypertension, keywords with high frequency included resistant hypertension, blood pressure, sympathetic nervous system, and trial, which are terms frequently used in the cardiovascular field (Fig.  6 C and D).

According to Fig.  6 B, keywords were mainly concentrated in the fields of cardiovascular system and physiology, and three clusters were formed. The red cluster consisted of 64 nodes, including hypertension, renin-angiotensin system, oxidative stress, resistant hypertension, and nervous system, and was focused on the mechanism of hypertension. For example, development of neurogenic hypertension is closely related to elevated angiotensin-II, inflammation, and vascular dysfunction [ 33 ].

The green cluster mainly consisted of renal denervation, controlled trial, prevalence, management, and blood-pressure reduction, and concentrates on the analysis of clinical trials of hypertension and the therapeutic effects of RDN on hypertension. An animal study illustrated the therapeutic effect of RDN by reducing factors associated with hypertension, such as ang-II or actin-binding protein [ 34 ].

The blue cluster consisting of atrial fibrillation and pulmonary vein isolation, reflected that RDN can treat other diseases as well as hypertension [ 35 ]. A meta-analysis conducted by Ukena indicated the effectiveness of RDN as an adjunctive treatment for patients with atrial fibrillation [ 36 ].

Visualization of keywords. A Cluster map of keywords. B Occurrence map of keywords. C Word cloud map of the top 50 keywords. D Density visualization of keywords

Analysis of keywords timeline map

The timeline of keyword analysis explored the development and evolution of this research field. The time slice was set to 3 years, the g-index was set to 5, and the threshold of occurrences of the keyword was set to 14; this formed the timeline map of keywords in this research field by using CiteSpace software (Fig.  7 A). The size of the node represented the frequency of keyword occurrence, with the position related to the year. The purple and red of the outer ring of the node indicated the centrality and the strength of the keyword respectively, and the connecting line displayed a close association with the co-occurrence relationship between keywords.

Figure  7 A displays that research themes in the field of RDN for hypertension can be divided into 3 phases from 2004 to 2023. Firstly, from 2004 to 2010, research themes mainly involved theoretical exploration of RDN and research on the pathogenesis of hypertension [ 37 ], and included stimulation [ 38 , 39 ], fetal origins [ 40 ] and receptors [ 41 ].

From 2010 to 2016, keywords were heavily concentrated. During this period, the range of research was further expanded, and the number of themes increased rapidly. Therefore, it can be concluded that this phase focused on clinical trial research on RDN for hypertension. High-frequency keywords reflecting this stage included controlled trial [ 42 , 43 , 44 ], double-blind [ 45 , 46 ], meta-analyze [ 47 ], and simplicity htn 3 [ 48 ].

After 2016, the development of RDN has entered a phase of relative maturity, with further evidence of its effectiveness in treating hypertension. Therefore, this stage mainly involves exploring the extensive application of RDN in the cardiovascular field, while continuing to improve treatments for hypertension. This phase was analyzed around pulmonary vein isolation [ 36 ], baroreflex activation therapy [ 33 ], and rostral ventrolateral medulla [ 49 ]. Research around these themes is predicted to continue in the near future.

Analysis of keywords with high citation bursts

Figure  7 B represents commencement and termination times as well as the intensity of keyword bursts, where the blue color denotes temporal placement of the retrieved keywords, and the red line signifies peak intensity of keyword bursts. The examination of keyword mutations aids in investigating the frontiers of the research field.

In Fig.  7 B, uncontrolled hypertension had the highest burst intensity of 22.3, lasting from 2019 to the present. The subsequent keywords are neural control and the United States, respectively, which have already passed the period of highest outburst intensity. Early appearance of the sympathetic nervous system and arterial pressure confirmed that the mechanism of hypertension was a research hotspot in the early days of this phase. In addition to uncontrolled hypertension, keywords currently in the burst period include safety, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease, which represent the current frontiers in this field of research.

A Timeline map of keywords from 2004 to 2023. B Top 15 keywords with the strongest citation bursts

General information

In this study, bibliometric methods were applied to examine the development and application of RDN in hypertension. Since the initial application of this technique in 2009 [ 50 ], RDN has undergone numerous clinical trials and has been validated as an effective modality to treat hypertension, in addition to pharmacologic therapy and lifestyle interventions. The technique encompasses three primary categories: radiofrequency ablation, ultrasound ablation, and chemical ablation. Meanwhile, radiofrequency ablation, ultrasound ablation. Meanwhile, radiofrequency ablation and ultrasound ablation were approved for hypertension treatment by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in November 2023. This represents a significant development in the field. Based on the bibliometric analysis, the following representative clinical studies are as follows:

Currently, radiofrequency ablation is the most advanced technique used in RDN. Large-scale prospective studies and clinical trials of radiofrequency based RDN (rRDN) have been conducted in the United States, Europe, and Asia; among these, the most prominent are the SYMPLICITY trials. Initial clinical studies provided evidence in support of the efficacy of rRDN in lowering blood pressure. However, the SYMPLICITY HTN-3 clinical trial did not confirm the efficacy of this technique in the treatment of resistant hypertension, as investigated by a 6-month follow-up of 535 patients from the United States [ 18 ]. However, a 3-year follow-up revealed a 24-hour ambulatory systolic blood pressure (SBP) change of − 15.6 mmHg in the rRDN group, which is a significantly superior level of blood pressure compared to the sham control group (–0.3 mmHg) [ 51 ]. This trial corroborates the long-term efficacy of rRDN in patients with resistant hypertension, supported by the supplementary evidence provided for SYMPLICITY HTN-3. A total of 1,742 patients with uncontrolled hypertension were enrolled in the Global SYMPLICITY Registry at 196 active centers in 45 countries following the rRDN procedure [ 52 ]. The data from the three-year follow-up period indicated sustained the reductions in office blood pressure (–16.5 mmHg) and 24-hour ambulatory SBP (–8.0 mmHg) were sustained. Furthermore, the occurrence of cardiovascular mortality and major adverse events associated with rRDN was markedly reduced at the three-year follow-up. This study has demonstrated the durability and safety of this procedure.

The sham-controlled RADIANCE-HTN trials, conducted to investigate the efficacy of endovascular ultrasound RDN (uRDN) in lowering blood pressure, included two cohorts: the SOLO cohort [ 53 ] and the TRIO cohort [ 54 ]. In the RADIANCE-HTN SOLO study, 146 patients with mild hypertension who had discontinued their antihypertensive medications were randomly assigned to the uRDN group and the sham-controlled group. In the RADIANCE-HTN TRIO trial, 136 patients with severe resistant hypertension resistant to three antihypertensive agents were randomized into groups. The results of the two-month follow-up indicated that the uRDN group had more pronounced reductions in 24-hour ambulatory SBP (SOLO cohort: − 8.5 mmHg, TRIO cohort: − 8.0 mmHg) compared to the sham procedure groups (SOLO cohort: − 2.2 mmHg, TRIO cohort: − 3.0 mmHg). These findings substantiated the efficacy and safety of uRDN in the treatment of hypertension.

Previous clinical studies [ 55 ] have demonstrated the feasibility of alcohol mediated RDN. However, these studies were limited by a small sample size and a lack of sufficient clinical evidence. In the TARGET-BP off-MED study [ 56 ], 106 patients with uncontrolled hypertension were recruited. No significant difference was observed in 24-hour ambulatory SBP reductions (–1.5 mmHg versus − 4.6 mmHg). This trial confirmed the safety of alcohol mediated RDN; however, its efficacy has yet to be demonstrated. More recently, the TARGET BP I Randomized Clinical Trial was recently conducted [ 57 ], enrolling 301 patients with uncontrolled hypertension. These patients were prescribed 2–5 antihypertensive drugs, randomly assigned to RDN or sham control. The results of the trial demonstrated that after a three-month follow-up duration, a statistically significant difference in mean 24-hour ambulatory SBP between the RDN group and the sham-controlled group was observed (–10 ± 14.2 mmHg versus − 6.8 ± 12.1 mmHg, P  = 0.0487). Additionally, the occurrence of adverse events during the six-month follow-up period was minimal; this substantiates the intermediate-term safety and efficacy of the alcohol-mediated RDN in patients with uncontrolled hypertension.

Hotspots and frontiers

The analysis of the co-citation relationship between the literature and cited reference can assist in the development of a knowledge framework and identification of research hotspots. Keywords, which represent the essence of an article, can be used to ascertain the hotspot direction of a research field. In conclusion, research hotspots identified through analysis of co-citation relationships and clustering and timeline analysis of keywords can be summarized as follows: mechanism of RDN for the treatment of hypertension and advantages of RDN in appliance therapy.

Mechanism of RDN for hypertension

Research on the mechanism of hypertension is mostly concentrated in the over-activation of the RAAS system, sympathetic dysfunction, and release of inflammatory factors [ 58 , 59 , 60 ]. As a pivotal organ and nervous system for regulating blood pressure, enhanced renal efferent sympathetic nerve activity promotes activation of beta1-adrenergic receptors of glomerular parietal cells. This influences turn on renin secretion, glomerular filtration rate, and renal tubular sodium reabsorption [ 61 ].The renal afferent nerve provides continuous feedback to the central autonomic nuclei and regulates the central sympathetic nervous system [ 62 ]. Therefore, the interaction between renal efferent and afferent sympathetic nerves constitutes renal sympathetic nerve activity (RSNA), which plays a pivotal role in the physiopathology of hypertension [ 63 ].

Distribution of renal efferent nerve fibers is particularly dense in the vicinity of renal arteries and veins, and some branches of these blood vessels are distributed around the arterial vascular segments outside the renal cortex and medulla [ 62 ]. The RDN technique reduces blood pressure by removing efferent and afferent fibers from the renal sympathetic nervous system, increasing water and sodium excretion, and decreasing the RSNA system and systemic sympathetic nervous system activity. In other words, the antihypertensive mechanism of RDN is equivalent to the combinations of antihypertensive agents, including beta-blockers, calcium channel blockers (CCBs), angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs), angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEI), and thiazide-like diuretics. Hence, RDN is a more suitable treatment option for patients with resistant hypertension.

Advantages of RDN in appliance therapy

At present, in addition to the RDN technology, several devices have been proposed to treat resistant hypertension. These include a central iliac arteriovenous coupler, electrical baroreflex activation therapy, and others.

The prompt decline in blood pressure following treatment of the anastomosis may be attributed to the formation of a low-resistance, high-compliance venous segment into the central arterial tree [ 7 , 64 , 65 ]. In a randomized controlled trial (the ROX CONTROL HTN study) [ 66 ], 44 patients were randomly assigned to the arteriovenous coupler group and 39 to the medical therapy group. The six-month postoperative follow-up indicated that levels of blood pressure in the anastomosis group (office blood pressure: − 23.2 mmHg systolic and − 17.7 mmHg diastolic, 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure: − 13.0 mmHg systolic and − 13.0 mmHg diastolic) exhibited a notable decrease when compared with the control group (–1.5[16.7] mmHg systolic and − 1.1[10.5] mmHg diastolic). While this study demonstrates the efficacy of the central iliac arteriovenous coupler for treating resistant hypertension, it is important to note that there 25 adverse events occurred among the patients who underwent this surgical procedure; these included urinary retention, transient pain, anemia, and others. Twelve patients developed significant unilateral lower extremity edema and were subsequently diagnosed with iliac vein stenosis proximal to the anastomosis. To date, no reports or clinical trials have been published regarding the long-term safety of central iliac arteriovenous coupler treatment; hence, this needs to be investigated in the future.

Electrical baroreflex activation therapy (BAT) stimulates the baroreceptors in the carotid sinus, inhibiting the activity of sympathetic nerves and ultimately reducing blood pressure [ 67 ]. In a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study [ 68 ], 256 patients with resistant hypertension were randomly assigned to one of two groups. Group A was administered immediate BAT, while Group B underwent BAT deferred for six months. While the second-generation BAT technique is a significant advance over existing approaches, further randomized treatment trials must be conducted to prove the durability and safety of this technique for patients with resistant hypertension. Other technologies are not yet sufficiently mature for widespread adoption, and further studies and clinical trials are needed to improve their theranostic applications. In contrast, RDN has been verified and analyzed in numerous randomized clinical trials; hence, it offers a more objective theoretical basis, and plays an invaluable role in the treatment of resistant hypertension.

By analyzing the keywords with high citation bursts in this paper, we can summarize the research frontiers of RDN can be summarized as follows:

Improvement of RDN instruments and techniques

Although the RDN technique has become relatively established and confirmed by multiple studies, some uncertainty about this surgery persists. A study conducted by De Jong et al. [ 69 ] showed that 30% of patients did not respond when undergoing the RDN procedure with the monopoly ablation catheter, this may be due to the different proportions of sympathetic and parasympathetic tissue around the renal arteries [ 70 ]. Therefore, improvements to RDN instrumentation and techniques remain an important direction for research.

Taking rRDN as an example, in the SPYRAL HTN-OFF MED trial [ 48 ], the Symplicity Spyral multielectrode ablation catheter and the Symplicity G3 ablation radiofrequency generator were applied to patients with uncontrolled hypertension. The Symplicity Spyral catheter can ablate renal arteries with vessel diameters ranging from 3 to 8 mm. The catheter is equipped with four helical electrodes, enabling ablation of four quadrants of the renal artery trunk and at least two quadrants of the renal artery branches. The results of this trial demonstrated a significant benefit of RDN in terms of 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure reduction in the absence of antihypertensive agents, with stable levels of blood pressure throughout the day and no adverse events during the six-month follow-up period. However, this catheter has certain limitations. These include the following: the relatively fixed spiral structure of the catheter makes conformation to the morphology of the blood vessels challenging; the continuity of the ablation energy field is less effective, resulting in a longer ablation time.

A recent Netrod-HTN clinical study conducted in China investigated the efficacy and safety of the Netrod Six-Electrode rRDN for the treatment of uncontrolled hypertension. The Netrod Six-Electrode catheter increased the diameter of the renal artery vessels to 2–12 mm and adapted intelligently to morphological changes in the blood vessels, ensuring continuity of the ablation energy field. The procedure time was shortened, and the surgical efficiency increased significantly. Further prospective studies are required to verify long-term efficacy and safety.

At present, the RDN technique still presents some limits such as vascular endothelial damage, severe pain, etc. Further improvement of the RDN instrument and conduction of more research studies with multi-center, large sample size, real world studies represent potential future research directions.

Exploration of the therapeutic effects of RDN in diseases with increased sympathetic nerve activity

The increased sympathetic nerve activity is closely linked to cardiovascular diseases and metabolic abnormalities. Christian Ukena et al. [ 36 ] randomized patients with hypertension combined with atrial fibrillation(AF) into the RDN combined pulmonary vein isolation(PVI) group as well as the PVI alone group, and after 12 months, the odds ratio for AF recurrence was 0.43 for the combined surgery group versus the PVI alone group, suggesting that RDN can significantly reduce the recurrence of AF.

The subcohort of the SYMPLICITY HTN-2 clinical trial showed reduced blood pressure in RDN treatment with a concomitant reduction in fasting glucose (from 118 ± 3.4 to 108 ± 3.8 mg/dL), insulin levels (from 20.8 ± 3.0 to 9.3 ± 2.5 µIU/mL), and C-peptide levels (from 5.3 ± 0.6 to 3.0 ± 0.9 ng/mL) at 3-month follow-ups [ 71 ]. As an important regulator of insulin resistance, excitation of the sympathetic nervous system is associated with increased risks of central obesity and diabetes. RDN can improve glucose metabolism and insulin sensitivity, which can be explained by reduction of noradrenaline and inhibition of renal sympathetic activity.

Furthermore, some pathophysiology studies and clinical trials have demonstrated the treatment efficacy of RDN on chronic heart failure, left ventricular hypertrophy, and autonomic nerve dysfunction [ 61 , 62 , 63 ]. Thus, future research should explore the potential therapeutic effects of RDN in diseases with increased sympathetic nerve activity.

Limitations

Research data were obtained from the WoSCC. Only 433 review papers and 1,046 research papers were included in the analysis, as other types of literature and non-English sources were excluded; hence, there was a certain degree of source bias.

Conclusions

As the first bibliometric study of RDN for hypertension, this paper provided a comprehensive and objective summary of the status and clinical trials of the RDN technique, manifesting the efficacy, durability, and safety. The improvement of RDN ablation catheters and exploration of the therapeutic effects of RDN in diseases with increased sympathetic nerve activity will be the priority of future research. This will confirm the importance of RDN technology hypertension therapy and provide more treatment options to patients with hypertension or other diseases. Our study provides references and implications for future research into RDN for the treatment of hypertension.

Data availability

No datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.

Abbreviations

Atrial fibrillation

Angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors

Angiotensin receptor blockers

Baroreflex activation therapy

European Society of Hypertension

Calcium channel blockers

Food and Drug Administration

Renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system

Renal Denervation

Radiofrequency-based Renal Denervation

Renal sympathetic nerve activity

Systolic blood pressure

Pulmonary vein isolation

Ultrasound Renal Denervation

Web of Science Core Collection

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the kind support of Guang’anmen Hospital, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences.

This work was supported by the special project for scientific research and construction of the national Chinese medicine clinical research base, funded by the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine, China (JDZX2015142).

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Jiaran Li and Xiaohan Zhang contributed equally to this work and share the first authorship.

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Department of Cardiovascular Diseases, Guang’anmen Hospital, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing, China

Jiaran Li, Xiaohan Zhang, Yuchen Jiang, Huan Wang, Xiongyi Gao, Yuanhui Hu & Bai Du

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JR and XH analyzed the data and prepared the first draft of the manuscript. YC and H collected and collated data. XY helped in visualization. B and YH conceptualized designed the study and involved in manuscript reviewed. All authors contributed substantively to the manuscript.

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Li, J., Zhang, X., Jiang, Y. et al. Research status and frontiers of renal denervation for hypertension: a bibliometric analysis from 2004 to 2023. J Health Popul Nutr 43 , 142 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41043-024-00626-z

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How to manage the research-paper deluge? Blogs, colleagues and social media can all help.

Journals, journals everywhere — how to stay on top of it all? For ecologist Aerin Jacob, like many others, there is no single way.

She scans journal e-alerts for tables of content. She follows a carefully chosen roster of scientists on Twitter. She gets recommendations through speciality listservs, professional-society Facebook pages and updates on Google Scholar. Each week, she attends seminars, blocks off three hours to read papers and organizes a weekly, interdisciplinary journal club.

All of this takes 6–8 hours per week. “It's easy to feel like you're barely keeping your head above the flood of information,” says Jacob, a postdoc in conservation planning at the University of Victoria in Canada.

Recent bibliometrics show that the number of published scientific papers has climbed by 8–9% each year over the past several decades. In the biomedical field alone, more than 1 million papers pour into the PubMed database each year — about two papers per minute. For researchers who are already overwhelmed by bench and field work, grant-writing, publishing and other time-eaters, trying to navigate the growing deluge of data (see 'Sailing the data seas') has become a second job. Here's how some of them cope.

Club together

Teaming up can be a good way to stay on top of new studies. That's what Lawton Chung did with a few classmates who, like him, recently completed doctorates in molecular genetics and microbiology at Stony Brook University in New York. To avoid missing important papers, the group started a 'journal scan' — each member is assigned several journals and tasked with scouting for interesting papers and sharing finds with the group about once a month.

Others use aggregator sites to keep current. Postdoc Pavlo Kochkin, who studies atmospheric physics at the University of Bergen in Norway, organizes his reading list with news-aggregator Feedly . Each morning he opens his Feedly page, which includes RSS feeds from about two dozen scientific journals as well as a few popular sites such as Physics Today and Dutch Daily News. If a paper title catches his interest, he clicks on the abstract. On most days, he scans about 100 titles.

He also has alerts set up with the Google Scholar search engine to monitor publications by specific authors and to scan for keywords in journals in his field. He finds that scientific papers and news articles of particular interest show up on both sites, so he is confident that he rarely misses anything crucial.

Still others choose more deliberately what to read. As a PhD student, chemist Peter Robinson got a sense of recent developments by checking a handful of journals he could access online through institutional subscriptions. Each day he scanned just-accepted abstracts and read a few papers from start to finish. He spent up to 3 hours reading each morning and continued to read through the day in 20–30-minute chunks. Today, as co-founder and chief scientific officer of the start-up Enable Biosciences in Menlo Park, California, he still spends 1–2 hours reading daily — but has added technology and business news to the mix. About two-thirds of his reading is scientific papers, but the rest comes from blogs, social media and industry news aggregators such as FierceBiotech and GenomeWeb .

It's all about who you know

Adam Thomas, a lead data-science officer at the US National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland, relies on his virtual and in-person network for updates. He has set up a few automatic searches on Scopus, an Elsevier-owned database of academic journal abstracts and citations. But he relies most heavily on Twitter, Facebook, e-mail distribution lists, lab meetings and visiting speakers to learn about interesting work from colleagues.

With so much new information, we really need curators of content.

Blogs are another way to get fast updates, as well as to interact with other researchers. “With so much new information, we really need curators of content,” Jacob says — “not just aggregators, but people who select and comment on why something is particularly novel or important, bridge disciplines to explain broader relevance, put new content in context of where the field has been and ought to go.” She likes Dynamic Ecology , a group blog written by researchers in her field. Readers comment with thoughts or follow-up questions for the community — and these exchanges help to put information in context, she says.

But there's a lot to be said, too, for old-school face time (the real, physical kind, not the Apple messaging function). Through conferences, journal clubs and seminar series, colleagues catch up and share news of interesting publications or talks. “Word of mouth is really important,” says Chung, who starts a postdoc in September at the University of California, Irvine. It's a way to learn nuanced information that no paper, news story or blog can impart. “Academia and research can be isolating,” Jacob says. “Weekly events can help bring people out of their offices, create a sense of community and teach the culture and norms of the field.”

Curate thyself

Some researchers create their own curation systems. About six years ago, microbiologist Elisabeth Bik of Stanford University in California set up PubMed alerts to stay current on papers in the fast-growing field of microbiomes, and she shared interesting studies with co-workers. But then the field exploded: PubMed alerts clogged her inbox, and she shared more and more papers. Soon she was compiling her finds into weekly, then daily e-mails.

boxed-text Co-workers suggested that other labs might benefit from her round-up, so she created Bik's Picks , a blog that gets 300–500 views daily. Besides links to microbiome publications, it aggregates news stories on microbes and other topics, such as science careers and publishing. She started tweeting some of her blog content (@MicrobiomDigest) 3 years ago, and has more than 6,000 followers.

But Bik admits that the blog is a time-sink. “About two years ago, I could easily scan all the literature published each day in about an hour. Today it takes me two to three hours,” she says. Each day, she scans 30–50 papers through PubMed alerts, dozens of tables of content and publisher alerts, and up to 30 Google and Google Scholar alerts, each consisting of 5–20 papers and articles. She sometimes finds papers on Twitter and occasionally discovers preprints on sites such as bioRxiv, PeerJ and F1000.

Bik spends a few hours every workday morning selecting papers for the blog and tweeting the most interesting ones, then another hour at home on most evenings going through alerts that came in during the day. She receives no financial compensation for her efforts, but her principal investigator lets her spend work hours on the blog because it saves time for the other lab members.

Preprints have yet to gain a foothold in biomedicine, but other fields have a decades-long history of disseminating research before it goes for peer review. Since 1991, arXiv.org has served as a centralized online repository of freely accessible preprints in mathematics, physics, computer science and related disciplines. Moderators review manuscripts before posting them on the site, and most authors eventually submit them for publication in peer-reviewed journals.

In 2007, when astrophysicist James Guillochon started working on his PhD at the University of California, Santa Cruz, his department would meet three times a week for arXiv discussions. But the chats didn't probe very deeply into the new research, says Guillochon, now a postdoc at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He decided in 2009 to create Vox Charta , a version of arXiv for astronomy and astrophysics paper discussions. Through his site, colleagues can prepare for discussions — or decide whether to go at all — by using a voting system to flag the most interesting papers. Because Vox Charta papers come from a centralized source and most of the website is automated, Guillochon says that he spends little time managing the site beyond basic maintenance.

Last September, a pair of physicists created a similar site, Benty Fields , to cover the whole arXiv. The site lets researchers organize arXiv publications into reading lists and vote to put them onto the next discussion agenda. Benty Fields is set up like a social network: users can upload their CV and list of publications into a profile, and colleagues can follow each other.

In today's digital world, it is impossible to stay abreast by reading a few journals, so researchers must identify sources that can provide the crucial data they need for their work and career. “Reflecting on when, where, why and how we consume new information, and whether those behaviours help or hinder our personal and professional goals, moves us closer to becoming more effective scientists,” Jacob says.

Box 1: Sailing the data seas

Here are a few tips for keeping up to date without getting overwhelmed.

Don't try to read everything. “If a paper is really ground-breaking or highly relevant to my work, it will be shared through my network and will turn up in later keyword searches,” says ecologist Aerin Jacob at the University of Victoria in Canada.

Carve out reading time on a regular basis. Jacob blocks off at least one hour three times a week to unplug and read. She doesn't skim the literature; instead, she chooses papers ahead of time, usually one short commentary and one longer or data-heavy paper. Then she prints hard copies, turns off her computer or device and reads.

Go to seminars and meetings. These help to nurture breadth of knowledge. “They ward off the myopia that comes from delving so deeply into our individual research topics,” says Jacob.

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Esther Landhuis is a freelance writer in Pleasanton, California.,

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Science in the web age: The expanding electronic universe

The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload

Scientific output doubles every nine years

Information overload

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Dynamic Ecology group blog

Microbiome Digest — Bik's Picks

VoxCharta (for astronomers)

Benty Fields (for physicists)

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Landhuis, E. Scientific literature: Information overload. Nature 535 , 457–458 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nj7612-457a

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Published : 20 July 2016

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1038/nj7612-457a

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