THE EMERGING TRENDS OF SUSTAINABLE LEADERSHIP IN HIGHER EDUCATION RESEARCH

Abstract

Sustainable leadership in higher education has become a critical area of inquiry as universities worldwide face the dual challenge of ensuring institutional excellence while addressing long-term social and environmental responsibilities. Yet, the research landscape remains scattered, requiring systematic synthesis. This study conducts a bibliometric analysis of 1,100 publications indexed in Scopus between 2015 and 2025, retrieved using the keywords “leadership,” “sustainable,” “higher,” and “education.” Data were refined using OpenRefine to ensure consistency, statistical trends were analyzed through the Scopus Analyzer, and VOSviewer software was applied to visualize citation patterns, keyword networks, and co-authorship collaborations. The results indicate a steady growth in publications from 2015, with a marked acceleration from 2019 onwards, peaking between 2023 and 2025. The United States, China, and Malaysia emerged as the most productive contributors, while the most-cited works highlighted themes linking leadership practices with sustainability performance, innovation, and organizational resilience. Co-authorship analysis revealed dense collaborative clusters across Asia, Europe, and North America, underscoring the global nature of the discourse. Overall, the findings demonstrate that sustainable leadership in higher education is an expanding, interdisciplinary field characterized by growing international collaboration and thematic convergence. This study contributes to the literature by consolidating fragmented evidence and providing a comprehensive overview that can inform future research agendas and policymaking in higher education leadership.