A Bibliometric Analysis of Wicked Problems: From Single Discipline to Transdisciplinarity

With the increase of social complexity and uncertainty, wicked problems have become the hot and difficult issues in the frontier research of public policy. The concept of wicked problems was proposed in the 1960s. Since then, it has gradually spread to many disciplines, such as environment, urban planning, public policy, etc. A comprehensive understanding of the research progress of the transdisciplinary method is an important way to understand wicked problems. This paper uses Citespace5.5, based on bibliometrics and visual analysis techniques, to analyze 800 academic publications related to wicked problems and visually display the transdisciplinarity knowledge map and information panorama of wicked problems. Through a multi-level descriptive analysis of key literature, research origin, research hotspots and trend of the research on wicked problems, this paper finds out the law of knowledge growth and internal evolution logic of the research on wicked problems, and concludes that the transdisciplinarity research of wicked problems is forming, which shows the rule from knowledge diffusion (single discipline) to knowledge coherence (transdisciplinarity). The discipline of public policy has the potential to change the knowledge constraints of a single discipline and may offer transdisciplinarity approaches to wicked problems.