Type of the article: Research Article
Abstract
As renewable energy is now central to decarbonization and energy security, understanding how financial indices, green bonds, and venture capital steer capital flows has become crucial. This article aims to conduct a comprehensive bibliometric and science-mapping analysis of scholarly research on financial indices, green bonds, and venture capital in the context of renewable energy, to reveal the intellectual structure, thematic trends, and research gaps most relevant to investment management and financial innovations. Based on a Scopus dataset of 299 articles published between 1991 and 2023, the study employs Bibliometrix in R, standard performance metrics, and network-mapping techniques for co-authorship, co-citation, and keyword co-occurrence analysis. The results indicate a marked acceleration in publication activity after 2012, accompanied by rising citation rates and the emergence of a distinct research domain at the intersection of renewable energy and finance. This domain is characterized by a small core of journals and authors that account for a disproportionately large share of output and impact. Country analysis reveals a strong dominance of advanced economies, particularly the United States, China, the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, and Italy. At the same time, many regions with substantial renewable energy potential remain underrepresented. Thematic and conceptual mapping shows that “investments” form the central organizing concept of the field; financial indices and stock-market linkages between fossil and clean-energy assets constitute a mature, densely connected cluster; green bonds and sustainable finance appear as a rapidly expanding frontier; venture capital and early-stage finance, though still peripheral, are gaining prominence in connection with policy stability, innovation support and market design.
Acknowledgments
The project was funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme based on the Grant Agreement under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie funding scheme No. 945478 - SASPRO 2, Ministry of Education, Research, Development and Youth of the Slovak Republic and the Slovak Academy of Sciences (VEGA 2/0003/23), and Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine (0123U101920), and the project 101127491-EnergyS4UA-ERASMUS-JMO2023-HEI-TCH-RSCH. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Education and Culture Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
