Adoption research in England and Wales published in Adoption & Fostering: Initial findings from a bibliometric analysis

This study conducts a bibliometric analysis of research published in Adoption & Fostering to examine its intellectual structure, publication trends, and patterns of scholarly collaboration. Bibliometrics, as a quantitative approach to analysing scholarly outputs and metadata, enables a systematic understanding of research development through indicators such as publication output, citation performance, and collaboration networks.
Guided by research questions on thematic evolution, geographical and institutional contributions, and collaboration structures, this study highlights the role of Adoption & Fostering in shaping adoption and child welfare research. Data were retrieved from Scopus using defined selection criteria and curated through standard data cleaning procedures to ensure consistency and accuracy.
The analysis combines performance indicators with science mapping techniques, including bibliographic coupling and co-authorship network analysis. Visualisations are used to support the interpretation of relationships and research patterns.
Findings reveal the distribution of research output across countries and institutions, key contributors, and the emergence of thematic clusters within the journal.