Bibliometric Analysis of the South East European SDG4 Research

In this chapter, we use bibliometric analysis to evaluate SDG4-focused literature in South East Europe (SEE), comparing the scope and importance of regional research with global benchmarks. We outline the main themes of the regional SDG4 literature, focusing on the role of international collaboration in developing the existing knowledge on sustainable and equitable education in the SEE region. The study compares the state of the academic discussion on SDG4 at the regional and global scale and critically examines the obtained results with the previous analyses of regional SDG research. We find that international collaboration proves to be a valuable driver of research quality and impact of SDG4 research in the SEE region. However, too much reliance on international collaboration could lead to the lack of an authentic regional educational research agenda, due to the dominance of international authors and institutions. The conclusions of our analysis might be useful to regional educators, researchers, education administrators, and policymakers in aligning the overall education and research activities with the global SDG4 benchmarks.