# Progress, Challenges, and Sustainable Perspectives in Nuclear Energy Strategies
## 4 Discussion  
Based on the challenges identified by the IAEA (Figure 1): (i) Technological advances; (ii) Public perception; (iii) Economic factors; (iv) Waste management; (v) Climate change mitigation; and (vi) International cooperation and the bibliometric review approach, a series of research topics has been defined on global nuclear energy strategies, their progress, challenges, and sustainable perspectives. The definition of topics is a fundamental component in bibliometric analysis, playing a crucial role in structuring and understanding complex research fields. The importance of this method lies in its ability to provide an organized and coherent vision of scientific production around global nuclear energy strategies, their advances, challenges, and sustainable perspectives. Table 10 shows each of the defined topics, as well as the keywords and records identified. The data presented offers an overview of the main research topics around global nuclear energy strategies. Technological advances emerge as the most prominent area, representing 38% of the publications analyzed (909 records). This suggests a strong focus on innovation and the development of new technologies, particularly in Generation IV reactors and Small Modular Reactors (SMR). Economic aspects also feature prominently, with 30.5% of publications indicating the importance of cost and economic viability factors in the debate on nuclear energy. Waste management and public perception appear as significant topics, although with less representation (10.7% and 10.9%, respectively). This reflects the continuing concern for the safe management of nuclear waste [27] and the importance of social acceptance for the future of nuclear energy. Surprisingly, climate change mitigation is relatively underrepresented (1.8%, 42 records), despite being a frequent argument in favor of nuclear energy in the context of decarbonization. International cooperation, with only 0.2% (nine records) of publications, appears to be underrepresented in current research. This data suggests that nuclear energy research is strongly oriented toward technical and economic aspects, possibly in response to competitiveness challenges compared to other energy sources. However, the relative underrepresentation of topics, such as climate change and sustainable development, could indicate an opportunity to expand research in these areas, especially considering the potential role of nuclear energy in the global energy transition. However, it was not possible to classify 7.9% of the records (190 records) into any of the existing topics, which suggests that there are additional areas of research that could merit more detailed exploration to fully understand the landscape of nuclear energy research. Once the topic analysis has been carried out in terms of global results, these results are then developed as a function of time [49]. This technique makes it possible to detect \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c l l c} \hline \hline
**Denomination** & **Research Topic** & **Keywords** & **Results** \\  & & & **n (\%)** \\ \hline t1 & Technological advances & Technological advancement, innovation, Gen IV, SMR, and & \\  & Small modular Reactors. & & 909 (38\%) \\ t2 & Public perception & Public perception, social acceptance, and public perception & 261 (10.9\%) \\ t3 & Economic factors & Cost and economic & 730 (30.5\%) \\ t4 & Waste management & Waste management, spent fuel, and waste & 256 (10.7\%) \\ t5 & Climate change mitigation & Climate change mitigation, carbon emission, & 42 (1.8\%) \\ t6 & International cooperation & International cooperation, and global partnership & 4 (0.2\%) \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 10: Research topics. emerging patterns, declining topics, and changes in research focus as the field evolves [50]. To develop this technique, it has been necessary to analyze the relative frequency of the records depending on the topic and the year of publication [47,51].