Evolution, Thematic Structure and Educational Dimension of Research On Homotopy: A Systematic Bibliometric Review

Homotopy is a central concept of algebraic topology with broad theoretical and applied ramifications, whose educational dimension in higher education remains scarcely documented. This systematic bibliometric review, complemented by a thematic classification of content, examined the evolution, productivity, and thematic structure of research on homotopy and determined the place that its educational dimension occupies within this literature. A total of 193 documents from Scopus (163) and Web of Science (31), obtained after removing one duplicate between the databases, were processed with the bibliometrix package in RStudio, and the selection is reported according to PRISMA 2020. Most documents were published after 2020; the annual growth rate (20.59%) should be read with caution because 2026 is incomplete. Production is concentrated in the United States and China, with low international collaboration (3.11%). The author keyword co-occurrence map revealed three disconnected thematic communities (foundations and type theory, knot theory and quantum invariants, and homotopy perturbation methods), none of which includes teaching-related terms. Applications (61.7%) and concepts (23.3%) account for most of the production, while only one document in this corpus directly addresses the teaching of homotopy. Within the literature retrieved, there is a marked gap between the theoretical development of homotopy and its didactic transposition in higher education. Received: 25 July 2026 / Accepted: 19 October 2026 / Published: November 2026