Shaping the Knowledge Base of Bioeconomy Sectors Development in Latin American and Caribbean Countries: A Bibliometric Analysis

Abstract

Academic research on bioeconomy sectors in Latin American and Caribbean countries has developed exponentially over the last few years. Based on the Web of Science (WOS) database and statistical analysis of more than 18.9 thousand documents, the current article offers a bibliometric analysis of these datasets. The main bioeconomy sector identified in the results was biofuel production and all the background terms related to the primary processes of bioenergy. The other segments of the bioeconomy in the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region have not yet been studied with the same relevance as biofuels. Since 2008, researchers from Latin American and Caribbean countries have participated significantly in the scientific production of the field studied. However, the most relevant scientific journals belong to European countries or the United States. Journals from Latin American and Caribbean countries have very low representation, although the search topics are directly related to this region. Based on the co-occurrence of keywords, eight clusters with different levels of importance can be distinguished: (1) agriculture; (2) climate change; (3) biodiversity; (4) bioremediation; (5) bioenergy; (6) biofuels; (7) energy efficiency; and (8) bioeconomy. The above results highlight the significant research gap between biofuels and other types of bioeconomy sectors in the region. This is despite the immense biodiversity potential of the LAC countries, which can generate innovative products with bioeconomic added value that can stimulate scientific research in the sustainable bioeconomy.