Mapping past, current and future energy research trend in Pakistan: a scientometric assessment

This work describes the contribution of researchers in the field of the energy from Pakistan in the period 1990–2016. A scientometric approach was applied to analyze the scientific publications in the field using the Scopus Elsevier database. Different aspects of the publications were analyzed, such as publication type, major research areas, journals, citations, authorship pattern, affiliations as well as the keyword occurrence frequency. The present research trends are analyzed and future research directions are outlined. The impact factor, h-index and number of citations were used to investigate the strength of active institutes, authors, and journals in the field of the energy in Pakistan. From 1990 to 2016, 991 articles have been published by 2139 authors from 213 research institutes. The total number of citations and impact factor are 10,287 and 2301 respectively, corresponding to 10 citations per paper and an impact factor of 2.32 per publication. The research articles originate primarily from COMSATS, NUST, PIEAS, and PINSTECH. Pakistan has published 60% of publication with the collaboration of the foreign institutes, mainly from the United States, the United Kingdom, China and Malaysia. The core research activities in the field are mainly focused on resource assessment, energy policy, energy efficiency, feasibility study, energy economics, and performance assessment. The most productive journal, author, institution, are renewable & sustainable energy review, Shahbaz M., and COMSATS, respectively.