Digital circular economy knowledge production: mapping thematic concentration and implications for equitable transitions

Purpose This study maps knowledge production in digital circular economy research across an eight-year period. It examines which themes achieve prominence, and at what stage of publication that prominence is established. Design/methodology/approach The study analysed 1,803 Scopus-indexed journal articles and reviews published between 2017 and 2024. Descriptive bibliometrics and keyword co-occurrence were produced in bibliometrix via Biblioshiny, and thematic classification in Text Analysis for All. Citation counts were then modelled in R by negative binomial regression, controlling for year, document type, team size and journal. Findings Technical and optimisation vocabulary appears in 67.6% of documents once terms shared with the search query are excluded. The share is 79.9% when those overlapping terms are retained in the lexicon. Social and governance vocabulary appears in 21.5% of documents, and distributive vocabulary in 3.5%. Thematic classification produces six clusters of moderate stability, none of which is organised around distributive vocabulary. Socially oriented documents receive 58% fewer citations than technically oriented documents after controls for year, type and team size. This difference attenuates to 50% once the citation level of the publishing journal is taken into account. Holding journal identity constant reduces the difference further, to a level not distinguishable from zero. Journal placement therefore accounts for between a fifth and three-fifths of the difference, depending on how venue is measured. The analysis reported throughout identifies a statistical association rather than a demonstrated causal mechanism. Originality/value The study applies work on sociotechnical imaginaries to a stage that earlier accounts have not examined. Academic publishing narrows the range of available framings before policy or infrastructure takes shape. It also separates geographic representation from thematic diversity, two properties that authorship counts alone conflate.