Abstract

Modern universities have the task of transferring skills, knowledge and values, that serves the students to engage with societal and environment challenges. This research aims to examine the research landscape in the field of university-community engagement. Methodology: A longitudinal descriptive bibliometric examination of the scientific literature published during the period 2017-2021, was applied. Data were obtained through the search in the Scopus and Web of Science databases, using the PRISMA declaration for systematic reviews. Bibliometric indicators were calculated to describe the production, dispersion, distribution and growth of the articles. Through bibliometric mapping, the co-occurrence networks of the most used terms and citations were explored. A thematic analysis was also performed using the categorization scheme of Callon et al. (1991). To analyze the data, the Bibliometrix R package and the Biblioshiny application were used, and the VOSviewer software were used to visualize the outputs of the network analysis. Results: There were 404 articles, which received 431 citations, mostly from the United States of America (277), with an average of 8 citations per document. The annual growth of the literature was 29%, with an exponential adjustment trend (R2=.93). Most of the authors published only one article (93%), mostly in the areas of education and health. Eight thematic clusters were found, distributed into motors, basics, niche and emerging topics. Conclusions: The study confirms a growing scientific production on community engagement, which is concentrated in few journals and numerous authors. Various topics are denoted (such as community engagement and development, service learning, and community-based participatory research) that have relevant implications for universities, higher education institutions and policymakers.