What’s the state of energy studies research?: A content analysis of three leading journals from 1999 to 2008 Anthony Louis D’Agostino 1 , Benjamin K. Sovacool * , Kirsten Trott 2 , Catherine Regalado Ramos 1 , Saleena Saleem 3 , Yanchun Ong 4 Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, 469C Bukit Timah Road, Singapore 259772, Singapore article info Article history: Received 23 June 2010 Received in revised form 3 October 2010 Accepted 6 October 2010 Available online 11 November 2010 Keywords: Content analysis Energy studies Energy policy Interdisciplinary abstract We present the results of a content analysis conducted on 2502 papers written by 5318 authors pub- lished between 1999 and 2008 in three leading energy studies journals: Energy Policy, The Energy Journal, and The Electricity Journal. Our study finds that authors were most likely to be male, based in North America, possess a background in science or engineering, and affiliated with a university or research institute. Articles were likely to be written by authors working within disciplinary boundaries and using research methods from an economics/engineering background. The US was the most written about country among papers that adopted a country focus and electricity was the most frequently discussed energy source. Energy markets and public policy instruments were the most popular focus areas. According to these findings, we identify five thematic areas whose further investigation could enhance the energy studies field and increase the policy-relevance of contemporary research. Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Over the span of the last decade, the range and geographic scope of issues confronting energy studies researchers has unarguably widened. From food versus fuel tradeoffs in biofuels production, to optimal public policies for catalyzing the de-carbonization of global energy supply, to the rise in appliance standards and energy efficiency labeling programs, many energy-related topics feature prominently in popular discussions about public policy, trade, the economy, and public health. The pervasive nature of energy systems and the ubiq- uity of energy use in all facets of life suggest that a more expansive set of methods and practitioners are driving the current research agenda than ever before. It is increasingly clear that energy fuels and services demand robust discussion across their economic, technological, geo- political, sociological, and psychological dimensions. Just as much as the study of war is not left to historians alone, understanding the ascendance of ‘oil diplomacy’ is not the task of economists. A decade ago, Lutzenhiser and Shove [1] made a similar obser- vation, reflecting on the mismatch between research questions and the methods used to address them. They had hoped that the growing urgency of numerous energy-related problemsdclimate change, peak rates in oil production, and rising energy prices, to name a fewdwould also induce a similar shift, or broadening, of energy studies research beyond the “hard” realm of economics and science into the “soft” domain of social science and behavior. Looking at ten years of energy studies research in three prominent journals, our paper answers the question: “Has it?” Several factors motivated such an analysis. First, to better assess the current state of research in the energy studies community requires a systematic review of which topics have been regularly published on, and conversely, an evaluation of which topics have been neglected. Findings could offer new researchers rich infor- mation about which methods and topics remain under-examined in the literature. Second, we wanted to test the reflexiveness of energy studies researchers against evolving societal needs. We hypothesized that the perceived rise in urgency of issues like climate change and energy security would result in a growing number of papers covering such themes across time. Third, we wished to determine if interdisciplinary approaches have been mainstreamed by the field. Section 2 of this paper explains our content analysis method- ology and the nine assessment categories used to evaluate each article. Section 3 features our results and distills the key findings * Corresponding author. Tel.: þ65 6516 7501; fax: þ65 6468 4186. E-mail addresses: sppald@nus.edu.sg (A.L. D’Agostino), bsovacool@nus.edu.sg (B.K. Sovacool), sppkt@nus.edu.sg (K. Trott), cathyramos@yahoo.com (C.R. Ramos), ssaleem@nus.edu.sg (S. Saleem), sppoyc@nus.edu.sg (Y. Ong). 1 Tel.: þ65 6516 8693. 2 Tel.: þ65 6516 5391. 3 Tel.: þ65 6516 7552. 4 Tel.: þ65 6516 6724. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Energy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/energy 0360-5442/$ e see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.energy.2010.10.013 Energy 36 (2011) 508e519