# Bibliometric Analysis of Social Robotics Research: Identifying Research Trends and Knowledgebase
## 4 Discussion
### Missing Elements in the Current Social Robotics Research and Future Perspectives
These are among the few examples of highly cited material from the social sciences. In general, highly cited material from outside the network is also related to robotics. Social robotics is social in its intention, but its knowledgebase is concentrated in the engineering and technology domains. It has been discussed that researchers in this field have a technologically determinist view [68], and the lack of source material from other engineering domains seems to support that argument. Additionally, the insufficient evidence of a knowledgebase from other domains may raise the question of how engineers know if they are applying the right instruments when measuring social, cultural or psychological cues, or in the words of [PERSON] et al. in this regard: \"most engineers who develop robots are often unaware of this large body of knowledge, and sometimes run naive experiments in order to verify their designs\" [69]. Finally, in this study, we analyzed academic papers of social robotics under a narrow definition and restrictive methodology. By setting the boundaries of our data selection to articles explicitly mentioning the words \"robots\" and \"society\", or their variations, we left out peripheral technologies and research that can be associated with social robotics. Therefore, it can be argued that the described network is incomplete. This notwithstanding, it represents the very core of social robotics. To overcome this limitation, we also studied the most related sub-cluster in the robotics network, the human-robot interaction sub-cluster that is shown in Appendix A. We found larger clusters describing the same topics discussed in social robotics, but there were also some differences. Military robotics and robot-ethics appeared, whereas swarm robotics and the assessment of robotics were not found. Human-robot interaction also contains clusters about enabling technologies, like cloud computing, robotic frameworks that are not directly related to social robotics. It is not possible to establish sharp boundaries between clearly overlapping fields. However, we could get a comprehensive view by comparing both. Similar to human-robot interaction, the concept of \"collaborative robotics\" is rather ubiquitous to new research trends. We found articles on collaborative and cooperative robotics in a variety of topics in both the social robotics network, as in specific applied research within the larger landscape of robotics. While collaborative robots have application in several environments, they are primarily associated with the manufacturing industry, where their higher degree of mobility and autonomy enables them to handle objects simultaneously with the human counterpart, among other abilities. So far, this type of interaction has been heavily regulated to comply safety standards [70; 71], but new developments [72; 73] may soon make it possible to establish a breakthrough, thus having an intrinsic social impact on the production system and labor. From a bibliometric perspective, we could not find a cohesive cluster of cooperative robots. This might be either because of its nature as an emergent topic or its ubiquity. However, the presence of its associated keywords suggests an increasing interest in academia. The present article brought a snapshot of the actual state of research of social robotics, and subsequent follow up overviews may help to reveal the rise or decline of academic topics. The methodology presented here is optimized for the mapping of topics where the community of researchers has achieved a uniform vocabulary and coherent citation patterns. Thus, very new or specific topics (for instance, those targeted at national-level projects) may be out of reach to be seen as clusters, and its outputs may get diluted in their most related research topics. Tracking the evolution of academic topics from their birth in specific projects to their consolidation as complete academic domains is an avenue that we leave open for future research.