The First Decade of the Review of Innovation and Competitiveness

Purpose. This paper presents a bibliometric analysis of the Review of Innovation and Competitiveness (RIC) - A Journal of Economic and Social Research across its first ten years, examining how the journal aligns with cutting-edge economic and managerial research. By focusing on innovation and competitiveness (key themes within the journal’s scope) we assess cumulative publications, citations, keyword trends, and country distributions to understand RIC’s evolving impact on both academic theory and practice. Design/Methodology/Approach. Data on publication, citation, and articles’ views were collected from the journal’s records on Hrčak and Google Scholar to evaluate how topic relevance and paper quality influence scholarly visibility. Descriptive statistics, network visualization, and correlation analyses offer a quantitative perspective of the journal’s development. Findings and implications. Results indicate a swift rise in both publications and citations in RIC’s early years, followed by stable yet continued growth thereafter. Countries such as Croatia and Nigeria contribute the highest number of articles, while authors from Austria and India achieve notable citation impact. Keyword analysis highlights a broad thematic array, ranging from macroeconomic policy to firm-level decision-making, indicating that innovation and competitiveness are often explored from multiple angles. These findings not only reaffirm RIC’s wide-ranging scope but also underscore its capacity to integrate new, cutting-edge research areas (e.g., digital transformation, behavioral finance). The insights offer direction for future submissions and indicate where emerging topics might be further developed to inform practice, policy, and theory. Limitations. Because the analysis relies on a single journal’s dataset, the findings cannot be generalized to any broader disciplinary trends. Citation-based metrics also tend to favor older publications, and newer articles may not yet show their full impact. While the study captures clear patterns, the interplay between article quality, topic selection, and external citation drivers requires more extensive qualitative or comparative research. Originality. This paper provides a data-driven reflection on RIC’s first decade, offering a comprehensive mapping of the journal’s thematic evolution. By integrating citation data with keyword networks and country distributions, the study illuminates how the journal has matured and also the ways it can further position itself as a leading forum for advanced, cross-disciplinary insights on innovation and competitiveness – necessary areas for driving economic and managerial progress worldwide.