---
title: "Circular economy research: papers, trends and top journals"
description: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “circular economy” appeared in 1,167 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in operations research (400), economics (338) and management (302)."
url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/circular-economy
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/circular-economy.md
license: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)
share_text: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “circular economy” appeared in 1,167 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in operations research (400), economics (338) and management (302). (as of 2026-11-03)"
data_url: https://scholar4ai.com/data/rankings.json
updated: 2026-11-03T18:03:37+09:00
window: 2026-10-05 to 2026-11-03
source: OpenAlex (CC0)
---

# Papers on “circular economy”

Research on “circular economy” in the 480 tracked journals: papers per year and category, the journals, institutions and countries publishing it, the keywords studied with it and its most-cited papers. It is not among the most frequent keywords of the last 30 days, so this page has no list of its latest papers.

Back to the ranking: https://scholar4ai.com/rankings/keywords.md

## Key findings

- From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “circular economy” appeared in 1,167 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in operations research (400), economics (338) and management (302).
- 248 of them were published in 2025, against 21 in 2017.
- Since 2023, the institutions with the most of these papers were O. P. Jindal Global University (11), Parthenope University of Naples (11) and University of Tehran (11).
- The journals publishing most of them were Computers & Industrial Engineering (73), Resources Policy (59) and Ecological Economics (46).
- The most-cited of them is “Circular Economy: The Concept and its Limitations” (Ecological Economics, 2017), with 3,955 citations.

## Papers per year

*Papers per publication year and category*

| Category | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 (so far) |
|---|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|
| [Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/operations-research.md) | 1 | 4 | 12 | 11 | 31 | 54 | 59 | 49 | 113 | 66 |
| [Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/economics.md) | 9 | 16 | 19 | 22 | 35 | 32 | 45 | 62 | 51 | 47 |
| [Management](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/management.md) | 8 | 2 | 6 | 14 | 22 | 41 | 35 | 41 | 62 | 71 |
| [Marketing](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/marketing.md) | 0 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 7 | 6 | 6 | 8 |
| [Information Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/information-systems.md) | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 1 | 5 | 13 |
| [AI](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/ai.md) | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 6 | 3 | 6 | 3 | 4 |
| [Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/finance.md) | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 11 |
| [Tourism and Hospitality](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/tourism-and-hospitality.md) | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 |
| [Higher Education and Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/higher-education-and-research.md) | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| [Health Economics and Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/health-economics-and-policy.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| [Accounting](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/accounting.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| All categories | 21 | 25 | 42 | 56 | 93 | 138 | 155 | 166 | 248 | 223 |

## Where the papers come from

*Journals with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Journal | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Computers & Industrial Engineering](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/computers-industrial-engineering.md) | 73 |
| 2 | [Resources Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/resources-policy.md) | 59 |
| 3 | [Ecological Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/ecological-economics.md) | 46 |
| 4 | [Annals of Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/annals-of-operations-research.md) | 44 |
| 5 | [Technological Forecasting and Social Change](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/technological-forecasting-and-social-change.md) | 41 |
| 6 | [International Journal of Production Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-journal-of-production-economics.md) | 38 |
| 7 | [Journal of Innovation & Knowledge](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-innovation-knowledge.md) | 36 |
| 8 | [Cleaner Logistics and Supply Chain](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/cleaner-logistics-and-supply-chain.md) | 32 |
| 9 | [Journal of Open Innovation Technology Market and Complexity](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-open-innovation-technology-market-and-complexity.md) | 21 |
| 10 | [Socio-Economic Planning Sciences](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/socio-economic-planning-sciences.md) | 20 |

*Institutions with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Institution | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | O. P. Jindal Global University | 11 |
| 2 | Parthenope University of Naples | 11 |
| 3 | [University of Tehran](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/university-of-tehran.md) | 11 |
| 4 | [NEOMA Business School](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/neoma-business-school.md) | 10 |
| 5 | [University of Turin](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/university-of-turin.md) | 9 |
| 6 | Azerbaijan State University of Economics | 8 |
| 7 | [Politecnico di Milano](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/politecnico-di-milano.md) | 8 |
| 8 | [University of Naples Federico II](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/university-of-naples-federico-ii.md) | 8 |
| 9 | University of Salerno | 8 |
| 10 | [Hong Kong Polytechnic University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/hong-kong-polytechnic-university.md) | 7 |

*Countries with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Country | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | China | 171 |
| 2 | United Kingdom | 107 |
| 3 | Italy | 105 |
| 4 | India | 78 |
| 5 | United States | 63 |
| 6 | France | 56 |
| 7 | Germany | 51 |
| 8 | Spain | 50 |
| 9 | Australia | 38 |
| 10 | Netherlands | 38 |

*Keywords with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | recycling | 46 |
| 2 | [sustainability](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/sustainability.md) | 42 |
| 3 | [CO2 emissions](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/co2-emissions.md) | 40 |
| 4 | resource efficiency | 40 |
| 5 | [supply chain resilience](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/supply-chain-resilience.md) | 40 |
| 6 | [sustainable development](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/sustainable-development.md) | 39 |
| 7 | waste management | 38 |
| 8 | [blockchain](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/blockchain.md) | 36 |
| 9 | [Industry 4.0](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/industry-4-0.md) | 35 |

## Most-cited papers

*Most-cited papers since 2017*

| # | Citations | Per month | Title | Journal | Published | Authors |
|---:|---:|---:|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3,955 | 35.4 | [Circular Economy: The Concept and its Limitations](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2017.06.041) | [Ecological Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/ecological-economics.md) | 2017-07-12 | Jaana Korhonen, Antero Honkasalo, Jyri Seppälä |
| 2 | 1,900 | 18.6 | [Barriers to the Circular Economy: Evidence From the European Union (EU)](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2018.04.028) | [Ecological Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/ecological-economics.md) | 2018-04-30 | Julian Kirchherr, Laura Piscicelli, Ruben Bour et al. |
| 3 | 1,166 | 10.6 | [Lost in Transition? Drivers and Barriers in the Eco-innovation Road to the Circular Economy](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2017.08.001) | [Ecological Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/ecological-economics.md) | 2017-09-06 | Ana de Jesús, Sandro Mendonça |
| 4 | 1,113 | 10.6 | [Industry 4.0 and the circular economy: a proposed research agenda and original roadmap for sustainable operations](https://doi.org/10.1007/s10479-018-2772-8) | [Annals of Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/annals-of-operations-research.md) | 2018-02-01 | Ana Beatriz Lopes de Sousa Jabbour, Charbel José Chiappetta Jabbour, Moacir Godinho Filho et al. |
| 5 | 835 | 11.2 | [The smart circular economy: A digital-enabled circular strategies framework for manufacturing companies](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2020.07.044) | [Journal of Business Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-business-research.md) | 2020-08-25 | Eivind Kristoffersen, Fenna Blomsma, Patrick Mikalef et al. |

## Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). Papers on “circular economy”. Journal and Conference Research Rankings. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/circular-economy

```bibtex
@misc{scholar4ai-keywords-circular-economy,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {Papers on “circular economy”},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/circular-economy}},
  urldate = {2026-11-03},
  note = {Journal and Conference Research Rankings; data from OpenAlex (CC0); licensed CC BY-NC 4.0}
}
```

License: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).