Research landscape of education and sustainable development in universities: a scopus-based bibliometric analysis

Abstract

This study aims to map the research landscape of Education and Sustainable Development (ESD) within the context of higher education through a bibliometric analysis of Scopus-indexed publications published between 2015 and 2025. A bibliometric approach was employed using data retrieved from the Scopus database through the keywords “Education for Sustainable Development” OR “ESD” AND “Higher Education.” A total of 382 journal articles that met the inclusion criteria were analyzed using VOSviewer to examine publication trends, leading publication sources, prolific authors, country contributions, dominant subject areas, and keyword co-occurrence networks. The findings reveal a substantial increase in scholarly output over the study period, indicating growing academic interest in sustainability issues within higher education. Sustainability and the International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education emerged as the most productive publication sources. At the same time, Brock, Dlouhá, and Rieckmann were identified as the most influential and productive authors in the field. From a geographical perspective, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom were the leading contributors to the literature. Furthermore, Social Sciences and Environmental Science were identified as the dominant subject areas. Keyword network analysis highlighted strong interconnections among themes such as teacher, knowledge, SDGs, higher education institutions (HEIs), and sustainability competency. Overall, the findings suggest that ESD research has evolved into a multidisciplinary field increasingly focused on strengthening sustainability competencies and advancing the integration of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) within higher education systems worldwide.