Trends and themes in community engagement in higher education: a bibliometric analysis (1971–2023)

Purpose The purposes of the study are fourfold: (1) to systematically explore the research state on community engagement in higher education, (2) to identify actors – authors and countries – contributing to the field and assess their relative influence, (3) to investigate key themes and research clusters within the field, identify research areas and the research trend, (4) to map out the thematic landscape of community engagement in higher education through co-occurrence analysis, highlighting areas of convergence and divergence in research focus. Design/methodology/approach The study examines 350 publications extracted from the Scopus database from 1971 to 2023 and analyses it with biblioMagika, OpenRefine, VOSviewer and Biblioshiny and with the qualitative validation. Findings It reveals a significant increase in publications since the mid-2000s, peaking around 2020, particularly in the social sciences. Authors are from institutions across Europe, Africa, North America and South Asia. Francesca Spigarelli from Italy, stands out with the highest average citation ratio. Key thematic clusters include community engagement, higher education, partnership, third mission, sustainability and innovation, alongside emerging themes such as disaster management and equity, providing valuable and novel insights into the present and future directions of the field. The USA is the largest contributor, while other countries participate to varying degrees. Research limitations/implications The study is limited by its dependence on a single database (Scopus), which may not include all relevant material. Originality/value This study offers a longitudinal and comprehensive research perspective on community engagement in higher education using advanced bibliometric analysis such as thematic maps.