Bibliometric Assessment of Research on Energy in the World, in the Eastern Europe and in the Republic of Moldova

Abstract

Society is becoming increasingly dependent on energy. It is a stimulating factor for economic growth and technological change, but also the most significant limiting factor. The analysis of research trends on energy is of great importance because it provides a picture of the development directions of the future. The goal of the paper is to evaluate the performance and tendencies of researches on energy in the World, Eastern Europe region and in the Republic of Moldova. This goal is achieved by using bibliometric methods. Bibliometrics has become standard method for measuring the impact of research which is accepted as a valid way of ranking scientific performance and tendencies. The novelty of the work consists in the wider geographical and chronological coverage of the study in comparison with similar studies, as well as that the analysis was carried out based on data extracted from two international and one national databases: Scopus Elsevier, Web of Science Core Collection and National Bibliometric Instrument. It was revealed that on global, regional and national levels the number of papers on energy increases quicker than the total number of publications. There is also a growth of the share of publications on energy from total number of documents on global, regional and national levels. The contribution of the Eastern Europe in the global information flow on energy increases slowly but stable. Lower speed of increase of the contribution of the Republic of Moldova in the regional (EE) information flow on energy is detected.