SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article
Front. Sustain.
Sec. Circular Economy
Volume 6 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/frsus.2025.1638284
Mapping the Nexus Between Open Innovation and Circular Economy: A Decade of Bibliometric Evidence
Provisionally accepted
- BINUS University, West Jakarta, Indonesia
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The urgency of environmental and resource-related challenges has elevated the importance of integrating Open Innovation and Circular Economy in sustainability-driven strategies. While these domains have independently matured, their intersection remains underexamined, particularly from a quantitative, science-mapping perspective. This study uses bibliometric analysis on 98 articles published in academic journals between 2015 and 2025, screened with certain criteria, from Scopus and Web of Science databases. The performance analysis and science mapping were carried out on R and VOSviewer, to understand the intellectual organization, changing themes and influential researchers in the Open Innovation–Circular Economy field. The results contributes theoretically on how Open Innovation mechanisms can facilitate Circular Economy transitions by highlighting underutilized theoretical perspectives, such as stronger innovation capability, better engagement with all stakeholders and greater organizational capability, and practically, it offers insights for organizations, policymakers, and other ecosystem actors seeking to implement circular strategies through open and collaborative innovation. Conversations are now shifting from theory to more practical and digitally driven approaches that apply to whole ecosystems. Technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, and digital twins are increasingly instrumental in supporting circular models and real-time decision-making. This research use Scopus and Web of Science database, that might cause to miss out on grey literature and studies from specific regions that are not indexed. In the future, research should include data from different sectors, develop designs like Open Circular Platforms and test ideas such as Circular Openness and Innovation Density.
Keywords: open innovation, Circular economy, bibliometric analysis, sustainable business models, Innovation capability, stakeholder engagement, Organizational capability
Received: 30 May 2025; Accepted: 14 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Surya, Rahim, Hamsal, Candra and Gunadi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Djoni Surya, BINUS University, West Jakarta, Indonesia
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