Research themes in big data analytics for policymaking: Insights from a mixed-methods systematic literature review

Abstract

<p>The use of big data and data analytics are slowly emerging in public policy-making, and there are calls for systematic reviews and research agendas focusing on the impacts that big data and analytics have on policy processes. This paper examines the nascent field of big data and data analytics in public policy by reviewing the literature with bibliometric and qualitative analyses. The study encompassed scientific publications gathered from SCOPUS (N = 538). Nine bibliographically coupled clusters were identified, with the three largest clusters being big data's impact on the policy cycle, data-based decision-making, and productivity. Through the qualitative coding of the literature, our study highlights the core of the discussions and proposes a research agenda for further studies.</p>