---
title: "Digital twin research: papers, trends and top journals"
description: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “digital twin” appeared in 533 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in operations research (188), AI (155) and information systems (131)."
url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/digital-twin
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/digital-twin.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 “digital twin” appeared in 533 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in operations research (188), AI (155) and information systems (131). (as of 2026-11-04)"
data_url: https://scholar4ai.com/data/rankings.json
updated: 2026-11-04T00:03:46+09:00
window: 2026-10-06 to 2026-11-04
source: OpenAlex (CC0)
---

# Papers on “digital twin”

Research on “digital twin” 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 “digital twin” appeared in 533 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in operations research (188), AI (155) and information systems (131).
- 140 of them were published in 2025, against 0 in 2017.
- Since 2023, the institutions with the most of these papers were Hong Kong Polytechnic University (19), Chongqing University (13) and Donghua University (9).
- The journals publishing most of them were Journal of Industrial Information Integration (89), Expert Systems with Applications (73) and Computers & Industrial Engineering (69).
- The most-cited of them is “Industry 5.0: A survey on enabling technologies and potential applications” (Journal of Industrial Information Integration, 2021), with 1,891 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) | 0 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 8 | 10 | 28 | 44 | 39 | 54 |
| [AI](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/ai.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 12 | 20 | 29 | 47 | 46 |
| [Information Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/information-systems.md) | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 13 | 10 | 14 | 22 | 32 | 34 |
| [Management](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/management.md) | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 6 | 10 | 5 |
| [Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/economics.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 6 | 3 |
| [Marketing](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/marketing.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 |
| [Tourism and Hospitality](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/tourism-and-hospitality.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| [Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/finance.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| [Higher Education and Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/higher-education-and-research.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| [Accounting](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/accounting.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| All categories | 0 | 3 | 3 | 10 | 23 | 37 | 71 | 101 | 140 | 145 |

## Where the papers come from

*Journals with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Journal | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Journal of Industrial Information Integration](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-industrial-information-integration.md) | 89 |
| 2 | [Expert Systems with Applications](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/expert-systems-with-applications.md) | 73 |
| 3 | [Computers & Industrial Engineering](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/computers-industrial-engineering.md) | 69 |
| 4 | [International Journal of Production Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-journal-of-production-economics.md) | 20 |
| 5 | [Flexible Services and Manufacturing Journal](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/flexible-services-and-manufacturing-journal.md) | 15 |
| 6 | [AI & Society](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/ai-society.md) | 11 |
| 7 | [Knowledge-Based Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/knowledge-based-systems.md) | 10 |
| 8 | [Applied Intelligence](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/applied-intelligence.md) | 9 |
| 9 | [Transportation Research Part E Logistics and Transportation Review](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/transportation-research-part-e-logistics-and-transportation-review.md) | 9 |
| 10 | [Decision Analytics Journal](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/decision-analytics-journal.md) | 8 |

*Institutions with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Institution | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Hong Kong Polytechnic University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/hong-kong-polytechnic-university.md) | 19 |
| 2 | [Chongqing University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/chongqing-university.md) | 13 |
| 3 | Donghua University | 9 |
| 4 | [Xi'an Jiaotong University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/xi-an-jiaotong-university.md) | 9 |
| 5 | [Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/centre-national-de-la-recherche-scientifique.md) | 8 |
| 6 | [University of Hong Kong](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/university-of-hong-kong.md) | 8 |
| 7 | State Key Laboratory of Mechanical Transmission | 7 |
| 8 | [University of Science and Technology Beijing](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/university-of-science-and-technology-beijing.md) | 6 |
| 9 | [Chinese Academy of Sciences](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/chinese-academy-of-sciences.md) | 5 |
| 10 | [Huazhong University of Science and Technology](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/huazhong-university-of-science-and-technology.md) | 5 |

*Countries with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Country | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | China | 148 |
| 2 | United Kingdom | 52 |
| 3 | United States | 41 |
| 4 | Italy | 35 |
| 5 | India | 34 |
| 6 | Hong Kong | 26 |
| 7 | Germany | 24 |
| 8 | France | 23 |
| 9 | Canada | 18 |
| 10 | Australia | 17 |

*Keywords with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Industry 4.0](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/industry-4-0.md) | 47 |
| 2 | [Internet of Things](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/internet-of-things.md) | 35 |
| 3 | [blockchain](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/blockchain.md) | 31 |
| 4 | [artificial intelligence](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/artificial-intelligence.md) | 23 |
| 5 | [supply chain resilience](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/supply-chain-resilience.md) | 22 |
| 6 | Industry 5.0 | 21 |
| 7 | interoperability | 20 |
| 8 | metaverse | 19 |
| 9 | predictive maintenance | 19 |

## Most-cited papers

*Most-cited papers since 2017*

| # | Citations | Per month | Title | Journal | Published | Authors |
|---:|---:|---:|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,891 | 30.1 | [Industry 5.0: A survey on enabling technologies and potential applications](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jii.2021.100257) | [Journal of Industrial Information Integration](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-industrial-information-integration.md) | 2021-08-11 | Praveen Kumar Reddy Maddikunta, Quoc‐Viet Pham, B. Prabadevi et al. |
| 2 | 933 | 13.6 | [Digital Twin: Generalization, characterization and implementation](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dss.2021.113524) | [Decision Support Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/decision-support-systems.md) | 2021-02-17 | Eric VanDerHorn, Sankaran Mahadevan |
| 3 | 933 | 20.5 | [Metaverse as a disruptive technology revolutionising tourism management and marketing](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2023.104724) | [Tourism Management](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/tourism-management.md) | 2023-01-17 | Dimitrios Buhalis, Daniel Leung, Michael S. Lin |
| 4 | 705 | 15.5 | [Digital Twin: Benefits, use cases, challenges, and opportunities](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dajour.2023.100165) | [Decision Analytics Journal](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/decision-analytics-journal.md) | 2023-01-21 | Mohsen Attaran, Bilge Gokhan Çelik |
| 5 | 589 | 11.6 | [Digital Twins: State of the art theory and practice, challenges, and open research questions](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jii.2022.100383) | [Journal of Industrial Information Integration](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-industrial-information-integration.md) | 2022-08-08 | Angira Sharma, Edward Elson Kosasih, Jie Zhang et al. |

## Research ideas that follow this keyword

- [Do digital twins pay?](https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/do-digital-twins-pay.md)

## Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). Papers on “digital twin”. Journal and Conference Research Rankings. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/digital-twin

```bibtex
@misc{scholar4ai-keywords-digital-twin,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {Papers on “digital twin”},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/digital-twin}},
  urldate = {2026-11-04},
  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/).