A scientometric review of explosives research: Challenges and opportunities

It is well documented that the amount of scientific literature is increasing annually, leading to increased effort being required to understand the breadth and depth of a field of interest. To address this challenge, a scientometric approach focussing on keyword analysis was used to evaluate explosives evidence in forensic science and identify trends, gaps, and opportunities. Analysis was carried out by examining the references contained in the triennial INTERPOL International Forensic Science Managers Symposium (IFSMS) reports (4665 references) and through a search for “explosive” in the Scopus citation database (70,699 references) to map the research landscape. This study focusses specifically on keyword representation and aims to identify opportunities to improve the searchability and accessibility of future published research. It was found that while analytical techniques are well represented and easily identified in the literature, other research areas such as the recovery of explosive traces are not. Military explosives, especially TNT, are the most referenced explosive compounds within the literature, however, it was challenging to identify literature on specific explosives, as compounds are often not included in searchable fields. To address these limitations, the use of standardised supplementary material is proposed to improve future searchability and discoverability. It is recommended that the explosives community come together to agree the most suitable strategy. This would enable researchers and practitioners to conduct focussed literature searching and develop a deep understanding across the field of explosives research.