Using Bibliometric Analysis to Review Research on International Cooperation in Radiation and Nuclear Safety, Nuclear Security, and Nuclear Safeguards

Abstract

Bibliometric analysis has become an essential methodological tool for mapping the intellectual and structural landscape of academic fields, yet it remains rarely applied to the study of international cooperation in radiation and nuclear safety, nuclear security, and nuclear safeguards. This paper uses a bibliometric approach, following the PRISMA 2020 protocol, to review the literature on this topic indexed in the Scopus database between 1957 (the year the International Atomic Energy Agency, IAEA, was established) and 2026. Three independent, reproducible Scopus searches were run for each domain, combining a fixed set of international-cooperation terms with domain-specific terms, restricted to the Social Sciences and Multidisciplinary subject areas, English-language documents, and defined document types. Performance analysis was conducted with Biblioshiny (Bibliometrix package, R), and science mapping was performed with VOSviewer to explore keyword co-occurrence and citation patterns by country. After screening, 479 documents on radiation and nuclear safety, 1,523 on nuclear security, and 122 on nuclear safeguards were retained for analysis, together with four smaller cross-domain sets. The results show a steady increase in publications across all three domains since the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty entered into force in 1970, with nuclear security recording both the largest volume and the fastest annual growth rate, while nuclear safeguards remain the smallest and least internationally co-authored domain. Science mapping reveals thematic clusters centred on nuclear safety culture and nuclear power for the safety domain, on geopolitics, non-proliferation and terrorism for the security domain, and on IAEA safeguards verification instruments for the safeguard’s domain. In-depth review of four representative international studies confirms the IAEA's central, model role in global governance of complex technology, while showing that none of the existing literature treats a single bilateral cooperation relationship as its primary research object. The findings provide a structural, evidence-based overview of the field and identify a clear methodological gap that the present line of research is positioned to address.