Mapping the intellectual landscape of start-up ecosystem research: a bibliometric review

A well-structured start-up ecosystem fosters innovation by integrating financial capital, skilled human resources, and strategic mentorship, driving macroeconomic growth through employment, sectoral diversification, and global competitiveness. It also enhances resilience and adaptability, enabling transformative solutions to societal challenges. This study employs bibliometric methods to analyze 621 documents from the Web of Science Core Collection (2010–2024) using Excel, Biblioshiny, BibExcel, and VOSviewer. The analysis evaluates publication trends, influential authors, contributing countries/institutions, citation impact, leading journals, bibliographic coupling, keyword patterns, and emerging themes. Findings reveal a significant rise in research output and international collaboration, led by the United Kingdom and the United States, with increasing yet uneven participation from China and India. High-impact authors such as Wright M. and Audretsch D.B., and institutions including the University of London and Utrecht University, act as key knowledge hubs. Leading journals like Sustainability and Small Business Economics highlight the domain’s interdisciplinary scope across technology policy, entrepreneurship, sustainability, and information systems. Thematic analysis shows consolidation around innovation, entrepreneurship, and knowledge transfer, while identifying emerging areas: digital entrepreneurship, blockchain finance, artificial intelligence, and climate-related innovation. Despite this growth, the field remains limited by structural asymmetries between advanced and emerging economies and by insufficient integration of diversity, inclusion, and gender perspectives, pointing to a research direction for deeper cross-regional comparisons and also study on emerging themes to a greater extent.