2025/07/10 by Felipe Ríos-Silva, Luis R. Pertierra, Daniela De Filippo +5
Decision Sciences · Environmental Science · #Polar Research and Ecology #Scientific Computing and Data Management #scientometrics and bibliometrics research
paper · pdf · doi:10.1017/s0954102025100199
openalex publication_date 2025/07/10 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
Abstract Antarctica, which has always been of great interest to researchers worldwide, is currently attracting considerable attention owing to climate change and other topics. In this context, bibliometric analysis allows the identification of hot topics, scientific productivity, cooperation, research gaps and strategic areas of potential interest. We conducted a bibliometric study to evaluate the global production of Antarctic research between 1980 and 2023 and analysed Spanish National Antarctic Programme (NAP) production as a case study. Scientific publications were reviewed and classified based on their main themes, key word co-occurrence and international collaborations. We found that scientific production worldwide and in the Spanish NAP has progressively increased since 1980. Globally, the main areas of research are the geosciences, oceanography and atmospheric sciences. However, the Spanish NAP, which reported 2287 publications, has focused more on the geosciences and ecology. Spanish Antarctic researchers have mainly collaborated with researchers from the USA, the UK, Germany and Italy. Our research highlights the importance of strengthening research plans to diversify and facilitate international collaboration, promoting a more interdisciplinary approach to address the current and future challenges identified by the scientific community. In this context, specific opportunities for developing a Spanish NAP strategic plan are discussed.