Key indicators summarise the report’s central metrics. All values are calculated from the underlying dataset and refer to the full period unless otherwise stated. Percentages (peer-reviewed, Open Access, international collaboration) are calculated as a share of total publications per year.
Percentage change is not shown when the base value is below 10 units, as small base values produce statistically unstable percentages (Hicks et al. (2015), principle 8; cf. CDC rule for n < 16). Absolute values are shown instead.
Insights
During the period 2001-2025, the
compound annual growth rate (CAGR) was +7.8%. The trend is
increasing (statistically significant; p < 0.05).
Mann
(1945);
Sen
(1968) The following years had unusually high publication activity:
2018, 2023.
Insights
The peer-reviewed share: 43.5 % recent
decade (2017–2026), up from 29.6 % previous decade (2007–2016).
Long-term trend (2001–2026): increasing. Note that 0% in the first year
of the period may reflect incomplete metadata rather than an actual
absence of peer review.
179 publications (98%) scientific, 4 publications (2%) other.
Older years (2001–2018) aggregated for readability. Full timespan available in data export.
The Norwegian Publication Indicator (NPI), also known as the Norwegian list, classifies publication channels into two levels. Level 2 (top ~20% per field) is considered the most prestigious channels. Level 1 covers other approved channels.
A high proportion of publications (≥10%) lack NPI classification. Common causes: missing ISSN in source data, channels outside the register (~40,000 journals), conference series, or recently launched journals. See the journal table for unclassified channels.
DORA mode is enabled for this report. Bifrost evaluates the report against the principles of DORA (2012) and CoARA (2022).
The report contains elements that are not compatible with DORA principle 1: “Do not use journal-based metrics as a surrogate measure of the quality of individual research articles.”
NPI level classification (Level 1/2) is shown in the report. NPI is a Nordic classification system that ranks publication channels by academic standing, i.e. a channel-based ranking that DORA advises against using as a quality surrogate. The classification is presented here as descriptive information about publication patterns, not as a measure of individual article quality.
Researchers are listed below, sorted by scientific productivity.
Insights
The top 20% most productive researchers
account for 63% of publications (Gini 0.52, scale: 0 = even, 1 = fully
concentrated). Average number of co-authors: 2.4 recent decade
(2017–2026), up from 1.4 (2007–2016).
Insights
Researchers form 7 collaboration
groups. The largest group (13 researchers) accounts for 45% of the
network. Each researcher collaborates with an average of 3.3 others (a
moderately connected network). Clear cluster structure (Modularity
0.77); researchers primarily work within their own group. The network is
relatively dense: 11.8% of all researcher pairs have a direct
collaboration link.
Each node represents a researcher and each link a co-authorship. Colors indicate research groups (clusters) identified via modularity analysis. Node size reflects number of publications.
The co-authorship network is built from co-authored publications. Each node represents a researcher, and each edge is weighted by number of joint publications. Edge weights are normalized using association strength Van Eck et al. (2009) before clustering with the Louvain algorithm. Centrality measures: degree (number of collaborators), collaboration intensity (total co-authoring frequency), and bridge score (weighted betweenness using inverse weights) Newman (2004). Network density measures the proportion of realized vs. possible collaborations. Terminology: «Collaborators (avg)» = mean degree; «Clustering» = modularity Blondel et al. (2008).
Percentages are calculated on pairs where both authors have country data (200 classified of 200 total, coverage 100%).
‘Co-authored texts’ indicates the number of texts the author has written together with one or more co-authors.
Network statistics show central nodes in the collaboration network. Degree is the number of direct collaborations, while betweenness shows which authors act as bridges between different groups.
The first co-author listed is the one the author has written with the most times. ‘Number’ indicates the number of co-authored texts with the author. Up to four additional co-authors are listed, in descending order of co-authorship.
Below is a visualization of the 7 different groupings in the dataset. The colors indicate different groups.
Adaptive visualization (medium): 29 nodes / 48 edges shown in full (no filtering needed).
Author names to the right; group ID to the left. You can see the size of the groups and the most common keywords of the groups in the tables that follow. A combination of search and sorting can be used to further explore group membership.
The table is limited to a) groups with more than 3 members; b) groups with at least one keyword in any publication; c) the ten most used keywords per group.
See also the supervisor and opponent network in the researcher section for an analysis of academic collaboration patterns beyond co-authorship.
Unlike the co-authorship analysis, which maps collaboration through joint publications, this section reveals the academic networks that emerge through dissertation supervision and opposition. Supervisors and opponents active at multiple institutions form informal knowledge bridges between organizations — relationships rarely captured by traditional bibliometric measures but which can reveal important patterns in academic knowledge transfer.
Insights
9 researchers have supervised or
opposed across institutional boundaries. Strongest connection:
University of Gothenburg – University West (Connection strength: 4).
Based on 100% of dissertations with identifiable supervisors.
The supervisor/opponent network is separate from the international collaboration map. The map is based on co-authorship between author affiliations, while supervisor/opponent relations are shown in the network below.
The network is based on supervisor and opponent relationships extracted from SwePub records. Connection strength is calculated as (number of supervisions × 2) + (number of oppositions × 1). The weighting (2:1) is a Bifrost convention reflecting that supervision is a longer and deeper collaborative relationship than opposition. The method lacks established bibliometric practice; it was developed specifically for Bifrost.
The supervisor:opponent weighting (2:1) is a Bifrost convention to reflect the supervisor’s greater role in the dissertation process. This is not established bibliometric practice.
Insights
17 institutions contribute. Högskolan
Väst, Göteborgs universitet and Karlstads universitet account for 89 % —
a strongly concentrated distribution. Concentration index (HHI):
0.319.
Overview of international collaboration based on co-authorship and affiliations in publications.
Insights
8 länder representerade i samarbeten.
Storbritannien, Finland och Tyskland är vanligast. 4.9 % av
publikationerna har internationella medförfattare — ökning från 1 %
(2007–2016) till 9 % (2017–2026).
Based on co-author affiliation country.
Insights:
The network comprises 14 institutions
with 19 collaboration relationships. The strongest collaboration is
between University of Gothenburg and University West (17
co-publications). University West has the most collaboration partners
(5).
The map primarily shows co-authorship between institutions. Supervisor/opponent links are shown as separate network relations and may be fewer, because only records with clear institutional affiliation can be included.
Insights
Social Sciences dominates (62 %).
Subject breadth is stable (2001–2026, H: 0.67 → 0.68). Research is
markedly interdisciplinary — it combines taxonomically distant subject
areas. Rao-Stirling: 0.686 (where 0 = single discipline, 1 = maximum
diversity). Based on 3 HSV main areas (Swedish classification).
Rao-Stirling
(Stirling, 2007)
Shannon H (evenness index) measures how evenly publications are distributed across subject areas. A value of 1.00 means perfect evenness; lower values indicate dominance by individual areas. Rao-Stirling measures interdisciplinarity by weighing both the distribution and the taxonomic distance between subject areas according to the Swedish classification system. The scale ranges from 0 (all publications in one subject) to 1 (maximum spread across distant subject areas).
Proportion of total publications per year (%). Note that a publication may belong to multiple categories.
Proportion of total publications per year (%). Note that a publication may belong to multiple categories.
etnicitet; genus; religious studies and theology; barn; learning; vårdvetenskap
Insights
Broad keyword profile — no single term
dominates (HHI: 0.0084 — Herfindahl-Hirschman Index, where 0 = perfectly
even distribution, 1 = one term dominates entirely). Most common is
“sweden” appearing in 19.1 % of publications, across a total of 352.
barn- och ungdomsvetenskap; child and youth studies; education; educational science; educational science; fenomenologi; humaniora och religionsvetenskap; religion; religionsdidaktik; religionskunskap; religionspedagogik; religionsundervisning; religious education
Colors indicate frequency quantiles within this dataset.
Red: Highest frequency (19.1-15.38%); Blue: High frequency (15.38-11.66%); Green: Medium frequency (11.66-7.94%); Orange: Low frequency (7.94-4.22%); Gray: Lowest frequency (4.22-0.5%)
The dataset contains 183 publications. A lower correlation threshold (|r| ≥ 0.4) is used to identify potential trends in smaller datasets.
Rising keywords: migration, ämnesdidaktik, critical discourse analysis
Declining keywords: youth
Comparison of relative frequency (share of publications) between periods 2001–2023 and 2024–2026.
Deep-dive analysis is shown for keywords with at least 6 publications in the focus period. The threshold follows Pearson correlation’s requirement of at least four degrees of freedom (n‑ 2 ≥ 4).
A growing trend may indicate increased research interest, but can also reflect terminological shifts.
New keywords (absent 2001–2023): unaccompanied minors, asylum, family reunification, international migration, legally oriented research
The following keywords show strong growth compared to the base period, which may indicate increasing research interest.
Growth period: 2020–2025
Driving actors (growth) (growth period 2020–2025):
Researchers: von Brömssen, Kerstin (5), Bauer, Simon (2), Flensner, Karin K (2)
Institutions: Högskolan Väst (12), Göteborgs universitet (6)
Co-occurring keywords: sweden, asylum, child refugees
Last 3 years: 5 publications
Analysis based on a limited number of publications (n = 7). Results should be interpreted with caution.
Growth period: 2019–2026
Driving actors (growth) (growth period 2019–2026):
Researchers: von Brömssen, Kerstin (2), Flensner, Karin (1), Klintborg, Caroline (1)
Institutions: Högskolan Väst (3), Stockholms universitet (2)
Co-occurring keywords: subject-specific education, religion, religionskunskap
Last 3 years: 2 publications
Analysis based on a limited number of publications (n = 6). Results should be interpreted with caution.
Showing the 2 keywords with strongest statistical evidence out of 3 identified. Selection is based on significance (p < 0.05) and correlation strength (Kendall’s tau).
Other growing keywords (lower statistical evidence): critical discourse analysis (+511%, n=5)
Below are deep-dive insights for rising keywords. Keywords marked with ↑ are statistically significant (p < 0.05), while those marked with ~ show strong correlations (|r| > 0.5) but lack statistical significance.
Some keywords in this section also appear under Rapidly growing keywords. This is expected: rapid relative growth and statistical significance are complementary measures, not synonyms.
Trend start: 2023 (3 pubs.)
Actor analysis for this keyword — see the rapidly growing keywords section.
Trend start: 2013 (1 pubs.)
Actor analysis for this keyword — see the rapidly growing keywords section.
Trend start: 2016 (1 pubs.)
The following keywords show a steady decline over the entire time period, without having had a distinct burst period previously:
A declining trend may reflect reduced research interest or a shift to newer terminology for the same research area.
Early publishers (2004–2008):
Researchers: von Brömssen, Kerstin (3)
Most active period (2004–2017, 5 publications):
Researchers: von Brömssen, Kerstin (5)
Institutions: Göteborgs universitet (3), Högskolan Väst (2)
Co-varying keywords: religion, ethnicity, discourses
Last 3 years: 2 publications
Note: A declining trend may indicate terminological shift rather than decreased research interest.
Early publishers (2004–2009):
Researchers: von Brömssen, Kerstin (4)
Most active period (2004–2014, 5 publications):
Researchers: von Brömssen, Kerstin (5), Risenfors, Signild (1)
Institutions: Göteborgs universitet (4), Högskolan Väst (1), Karlstads universitet (1)
Co-varying keywords: religion, youth, education
Last 3 years: 1 publications
Note: A declining trend may indicate terminological shift rather than decreased research interest.
Early publishers (2015–2018):
Researchers: Kittelmann Flensner, Karin (1)
Most active period (2015–2023, 4 publications):
Researchers: Milani, Tommaso M. (3), Spehar, Andrea (3), von Brömssen, Kerstin (3)
Institutions: Göteborgs universitet (9), Högskolan Väst (3)
Co-varying keywords: civic orientation, ideology, multimodal critical discourse analysis
Last 3 years: 4 publications
Note: A declining trend may indicate terminological shift rather than decreased research interest.
Early publishers (2006–2011):
Researchers: Bak, Maren (2), von Brömssen, Kerstin (2)
Most active period (2006–2017, 4 publications):
Researchers: von Brömssen, Kerstin (4), Bak, Maren (2), Risenfors, Signild (1)
Institutions: Göteborgs universitet (4), Högskolan Väst (3)
Co-varying keywords: space, sweden, belonging
Last 3 years: 1 publications
Note: A declining trend may indicate terminological shift rather than decreased research interest.
The following keywords had periods of high activity in the past but have since declined. The analysis shows when they peaked, what drove the interest, and how activity has evolved since.
Burst period: 2019–2024 (moderate burst)
Peak year: 2021 (5 pubs.)
Driving actors during period:
Co-varying keywords: civic orientation, civic orientation courses, educational science
Current status: Stable
The heatmap shows how often keywords co-occur in the same publications. Association strength Van Eck et al. (2009) normalizes co-occurrence by the product of the individual keyword frequencies. Red asterisks (✱) in the upper-right corner of cells mark statistically significant co-occurrences (p < 0.05).
Keywords that frequently co-occur in the same publications form thematic clusters. The table below summarizes the clusters; the interactive graph shows the relationships visually.
The network diagram shows how keywords relate to each other based on co-occurrence in publications. Larger nodes mean more frequent keywords. Lines show co-occurrence. Colors indicate thematic clusters identified using the Leiden algorithm (Traag et al., 2019).
The frequency of individual words in the dataset as a whole. Words have been taken from title, abstract, and keywords. “Frequency” is total uses, including the number of mentions in the same text, while “publications” is the number of unique texts where the word appears.
Insights
The 5 most common words (by share of
publications) are: “education” (51%), “sweden” (37%), “educational”
(36%), “swedish” (30%), “religion” (27%). These patterns reflect the
thematic core of the dataset. Note that geographic markers such as
“sweden” are common in academic metadata and reflect the national
affiliation of publications rather than the research topic.
Here is a summary of word stems, i.e. parts of words, in the dataset as a whole. Words have been taken from title, abstract, and keywords. “Frequency” is total uses, including the number of mentions in the same text, while “publications” is the number of unique texts where the word appears.
These trends are indicative and complement the keyword analysis above.
Methodological note: Word frequency analysis is based on individual words extracted from title, abstract, and keywords. Unlike author-selected keywords, individual words can be noisier and more ambiguous — for example, the word ‘system’ may appear in both technical and social science contexts, while the keyword ‘adaptive systems’ is more precise. Stricter thresholds are used (minimum 10 occurrences, correlation > 0.5) and academic stopwords are excluded.
Rising/declining shows trends over time (Spearman correlation). New/disappearing shows lifecycle — when words started or stopped being used.
No statistically significant trends were identified among the most common words.
The OA analysis is based on 31 publications with DOI matched against OpenAlex (17% of 183 total). 148 publications lack DOI and are therefore not included in OA statistics.
Insights
The OA share went from 0 % to 100%
(+100 percentage points) during 2010–2026. Diamond accounted for the
largest increase (+28.1 percentage points). Green OA accounts for 6.5 %
of all publications — available via open repository after an embargo
period (typically 6–12 months); more recent publications may not yet be
freely accessible. Diamond OA (no fees for authors or readers) accounts
for 29 %.
Note:
30 of 35 publications with DOI were
matched against OpenAlex and assigned OA status (85.7%). OA status is
sourced from OpenAlex (based on Unpaywall). OA status may be
retroactively classified — a publication that is freely available today
may have been closed at the time of publication. The trend should
therefore be interpreted with caution, especially for older
publications. Green OA classification is based on the presence of a
version in an open repository, regardless of whether any embargo period
has expired — the Green OA share may therefore be overestimated for more
recent publications.
The first doctoral thesis in the dataset is from 2003, Tolkningar, förhandlingar och tystnader. Elevers tal om religion i det mångkulturella och postkoloniala rummet.: Interpretations, negotiations, and silences. Pupils’ talk about religion from within multicultural and postcolonial spaces by von Brömssen, Kerstin. From then until 2020, a total of 10 theses have been registered. Of these, 6 are doctoral theses and 4 are licentiate theses.
A complete list of the search results. Initially sorted by year (descending) and author (ascending). Change the order at the column header. Search can be done over all displayed fields.
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