Interdisciplinarity in Hydrogen Technologies Research: Social Sciences Aspects

Hydrogen technologies research is an area where various research areas interact with each other such as the use of hydrogen in oil refineries, industrial production such as steel production and chemical production and obtaining fuel from various sources, strengthening the system as a power source, obtaining water through electrolysis, inclusion in the system as an energy carrier, storage, transportation, aviation and space, risk and security issues. This complex structure, which is immanent to social reality and nature itself, requires hydrogen technologies research to be handled with an interdisciplinary approach. Therefore, the study aims to determine the role and contribution of social science fields in this interdisciplinary structure of hydrogen technologies research. For this purpose, 379 articles indexed in the Web of Science (WoS) Social Sciences Citation Index between 1975-2021 in the field of hydrogen technologies research were analyzed with the help of related keywords. According to findings, the number of publications and citations in the field of hydrogen technologies research has been increasing rapidly in the last 10 years. The fact that more than half of the publications have more than one author shows that the interaction and cooperation between the co-authors in this field are intense. Studies in the field of hydrogen technologies are gathered in five thematic clusters named as "Technical and Systemic Context", "Hydrogen as an Energy carrier", "Political Background", "Transportation and Behavioral Factors" and "Infrastructure and Design", combining these clusters into a holistic socio-technical system. Keyword analysis shows that as time passes, the social dimensions and effects of research in the field are examined in more detail. The thematic topic map, on the other hand, shows that the hydrogen technologies system as a whole is handled with all its dimensions.