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. 2024 Feb 15:15:1259788.
doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2024.1259788. eCollection 2024.

Global research on RNA vaccines for COVID-19 from 2019 to 2023: a bibliometric analysis

Ziyi Chen #  1   2 , Zhiliang Liu #  3 , Yali Feng  4 , Aochen Shi  2 , Liqing Wu  2 , Yi Sang  2 , Chenxi Li  1   2
Affiliations

Global research on RNA vaccines for COVID-19 from 2019 to 2023: a bibliometric analysis

Ziyi Chen et al. Front Immunol. .

Abstract

Background: Since the global pandemic of COVID-19 has broken out, thousands of pieces of literature on COVID-19 RNA vaccines have been published in various journals. The overall measurement and analysis of RNA vaccines for COVID-19, with the help of sophisticated mathematical tools, could provide deep insights into global research performance and the collaborative architectural structure within the scientific community of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines. In this bibliometric analysis, we aim to determine the extent of the scientific output related to COVID-19 RNA vaccines between 2019 and 2023.

Methods: We applied the Bibliometrix R package for comprehensive science mapping analysis of extensive bibliographic metadata retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection database. On January 11th, 2024, the Web of Science database was searched for COVID-19 RNA vaccine-related publications using predetermined search keywords with specific restrictions. Bradford's law was applied to evaluate the core journals in this field. The data was analyzed with various bibliometric indicators using the Bibliometrix R package.

Results: The final analysis included 2962 publications published between 2020 and 2023 while there is no related publication in 2019. The most productive year was 2022. The most relevant leading authors in terms of publications were Ugur Sahin and Pei-Yong, Shi, who had the highest total citations in this field. The core journals were Vaccines, Frontiers in Immunology, and Viruses-Basel. The most frequently used author's keywords were COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, and vaccine. Recent COVID-19 RNA vaccine-related topics included mental health, COVID-19 vaccines in humans, people, and the pandemic. Harvard University was the top-ranked institution. The leading country in terms of publications, citations, corresponding author country, and international collaboration was the United States. The United States had the most robust collaboration with China.

Conclusion: The research hotspots include COVID-19 vaccines and the pandemic in people. We identified international collaboration and research expenditure strongly associated with COVID-19 vaccine research productivity. Researchers' collaboration among developed countries should be extended to low-income countries to expand COVID-19 vaccine-related research and understanding.

Keywords: COVID-19; RNA vaccines; SARS-CoV-2; bibliometrics; web of science.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flowchart of the related data collection and bibliometrics analysis.
Figure 2
Figure 2
(A) Annual related publication from 2019 to 2023 per year, and (B) average article and average article citations from 2019 to 2023 in COVID-19 RNA vaccine-related research. MeanTCperArt, mean total citation per article; MeanTCperYear, mean total citation per year.
Figure 3
Figure 3
The geographical distribution (A) and visualization (B) of countries on the research of COVID-19 RNA vaccines. A choropleth map detailing the geographic distribution of collaborating countries. The intensity (from light blue to dark blue) is proportional to the number of publications. The number of links (presented as red lines) between any two countries represents the strength of collaboration. (C) Co-authorship analysis of countries in the related research SCP (Single country publications) indicates that the authors of this article are all from the same country, and MCP (Multiple country publications) indicates that the authors of this article are from different countries, indicating international cooperation.
Figure 4
Figure 4
(A) Top 20 most relevant affiliations on the research of COVID-19 RNA vaccines. (B) Network map of co-authorship between affiliations with more than 5 citations.
Figure 5
Figure 5
(A) Journals (Sources) clustering through Bradford’s law. (B) Co-cited Journals of COVID-19 RNA vaccines.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Three-Fields Plot revealed the relations between journals (left), authors (middle), and affiliations (right) for research in COVID-19 RNA vaccines.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Network map of co-citation between references with more than five citations.
Figure 8
Figure 8
Keyword co-occurrence map (A) and the cluster of COVID-19 RNA vaccines (B).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This study was supported by the Jiangxi Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (20204BCJL23052, 20212ACB216013) and by Nanchang Natural Science Foundation No.129 in 2021.