Lessons Learned and Not Learned: Bibliometric Analysis of Policy Learning

Abstract

Using a bibliometric analysis of 547 publications on policy learning and 956 publications on learning in public policy from the Web of Science database, we identify key publications and authors involved in research on policy learning, understand how they relate to one another and to the wider literature on the topic, and investigate how questions about policy learning have been explored until now. We find little collaboration amongst scholars, limited consolidation of knowledge over time, and inadequate integration amongst research areas, leading to fragmentation in its literature within and outside policy studies. This field would benefit from a theoretical framework to clarify key concepts, synthesise findings, and structure research activity, and a systematic research agenda to address gaps in existing research.