Global Research Collaboration in Green Hydrogen: A Bibliometric Analysis, 2016–2025

Abstract

Green hydrogen has ascended as a pivotal component in the global transition towards sustainable energy, with its advancement increasingly reliant on international scientific and industrial collaboration. This study conducts a bibliometric analysis of the global research landscape pertaining to green hydrogen, utilizing a dataset of 2,324 documents (comprising articles and reviews) indexed in the Scopus database from the period of 2016 to 2025. The documents were sourced through a comprehensive Boolean search incorporating terms like "green hydrogen," "renewable hydrogen," "clean hydrogen," "low-carbon hydrogen," and "green H2." The investigation explores various dimensions including the annual progression of scientific output, leading countries and institutions in research contributions, key authors and prestigious journals, prevalent thematic keywords, and the configuration of international co-authorship networks. The findings reveal nearly a fifty-fold increase in publications during the specified period, with the research arena primarily led by China, India, the United States, Germany, and Italy. A significant aspect of the study is an international co-authorship rate of approximately one-third across the sample, with Saudi Arabia frequently serving as a bridging entity between different nations' research efforts. In contrast, Algeria’s presence within this scholarly discourse is minimal, evidenced by just 29 documents that are mostly co-authored with Saudi Arabia, France, and the United Kingdom. The paper reflects on the implications of these outcomes for Algeria's strategic role in international green hydrogen collaborations, particularly in relation to the SoutH2 Corridor initiative, and suggests strategies for enhancing the country's research collaboration frameworks.