Knowledge Mapping of Extended Reality Literature in 2024

Katerina Girginova

Introduction

This section of the report provides a critical overview of the knowledge created through extended reality (XR) scholarship in 2024. XR is an umbrella term that, for the purposes of this analysis, primarily covers augmented and virtual reality technologies and experiences – though, as we shall see further on, artificial intelligence (AI) tools are increasingly entering this mix. This section highlights key trends in XR scholarship including the geographies of knowledge production, central themes of research, most prolific authors, outlets, and funding sources. The analysis has a special focus on social sciences research because the authors of this report believe that critical, socio-culturally informed work is crucial for the proper development of XR technologies in society.

A search^[1] on the Scopus database yields 10,976 total peer-reviewed articles in English in 2024, spanning across 11 core subject areas. (Note that some articles are classified under multiple discipline categories.)

Of this total, 2,285 or almost 12% were designated as being within the social sciences^[2]. This is a slight increase from 2023 where 1,750 or just over 11% were designated as being within the social sciences. In general, the subject area research classifications (Figure 1) and the funding sources for research (Figure 8) indicate that XR is largely an applied research field.

According to the designations provided by the Scopus database, the social science subject area yet again saw one of the biggest growths over the last year (0.04%), along with engineering, business management and accounting, and material sciences. While still at half of the output from computer science, which is the most prolific subject area for XR research accounting for 23.4% of all published articles in 2024, the social sciences have seen a steady year-over-year publication increase signaling sustained academic interest. Other areas like psychology (which originally drove early humanistic XR research), computer science, mathematics and neuroscience saw a decline from 2023.

Geographies of Knowledge Production

China and the US once again dominated XR knowledge production. China was the leading source of all XR publications in English in 2024 (2,734 total publications), with the US (2,244 total publications) in second place. This trend was reversed within the context of social sciences, where the US was the leading intellectual source (439 total publications) with China in second place (312 total publications). These findings are similar to the last couple of years. Notably, whereas most other geographic regions published some XR research in English in 2024, African perspectives were largely missing. Finally, once again, key topics across all countries’ total XR output were education, computing, and medicine.

Authorship and Affiliations

Around 97% of all articles published in 2024 were co-authored, with this figure dropping slightly to 90% for the social sciences, specifically. This signals continued high levels of collaboration within XR research. Similar to previous years, no single author or institution dominated the research output, with the most prolific sources in both, the social sciences and all research categories, accounting for only around 1% of the total output. Nonetheless, the most prolific authors and institutions were associated with well-known and well-resourced research labs, indicating that XR research is often dependent on substantial funding and infrastructure. Lastly, all but one (Harvard University) from the top 10 most prolific institutions across all disciplines and the social sciences were public institutions.

Keywords

Themes of education and training, healthcare and rehabilitation, and user experience dominated the articles across all disciplines in 2024. Whereas virtual reality was the primary technology to be researched, augmented reality technologies as well as mixed reality continued to gain in prominence this year, edging closer to market conditions. In addition, artificial intelligence (AI), including machine and deep learning, featured not only in the harder sciences (see Figure 4) but also in the social science (see Figure 5) designations below. AI was often mentioned as another tool to be used for the creation of immersive experiences alongside technologies like VR and AR and in contexts from art to surgery. In some cases, virtual reality and augmented reality technologies were themselves framed as AI tools.

Figure 4. Sample of Top Author Keywords Across All Publications

Figure 5. Top Two-Word Author Keywords in the Social Sciences

Amongst the social sciences specifically, immersive technologies were most commonly deployed within the contexts of education, training and simulation. This typically included research in classrooms and medical or nursing spaces. Nonetheless, topics often branched out into older populations or those with special physiological or psychological needs. Health and wellbeing and cultural heritage were two additional popular contexts for XR social science research, as was user experience and cognitive load.

Publication Outlets

The journals listed below largely reflect the publication hierarchy of the research disciplines outlined in Figure 1.

Figure 6. Most Prolific Publication Outlets Across All Disciplines

* Marked journals are part of the selection for deeper analysis throughout the rest of the report.

The majority of the articles found in the journals above are dedicated to testing, improving and innovating XR technologies. Articles found in Scientific Reports and Plos One this year focus heavily on the psychology of XR experiences whereas those in Applied Sciences Switzerland have a medical emphasis.

Figure 7. Most Prolific Publication Outlets Across the Social Sciences Output

As can be ascertained from the journal names above, the majority are concerned with education and user experiences in interactions with XR media. Sustainability Switzerland has a contextual focus on environmental issues but also publishes widely on education around sustainable practices.

Funding and Access

Around 60% of publications across all disciplines received some sort of funding and in the social sciences specifically this rate was about 50% - both were consistent with previous years. All of the funding bodies in the tables below are national level agencies, with Asian countries leading in the number of articles published in 2024 that have received funding.

Figure 8. Top 10 Funding Sources for all XR Research

Figure 9. Top 10 Funding Sources for Social Science Research

Lastly, there is a slight decline in accessibility to XR knowledge from last year, with just over 50% of all articles being published as open access. While this is in line with broader estimates^[3] of open access to articles and journals, it remains a relatively low figure, limiting access to XR research findings.

1. The following string query was used in Scopus on May 24^th, 2025, to obtain the results:

   TITLE-ABS-KEY ( "XR" OR "VR" OR "mixed reality" OR "virtual reality" OR "extended reality" OR "augmented reality" ) AND ( LIMIT-TO ( PUBSTAGE , "final" ) ) AND ( LIMIT-TO ( DOCTYPE , "ar" ) ) AND ( LIMIT-TO ( PUBYEAR , 2024) ) AND ( LIMIT-TO ( LANGUAGE , "English" ) ) AND ( EXCLUDE ( SUBJAREA , "BIOC" ) OR EXCLUDE ( SUBJAREA , "IMMU" ) OR EXCLUDE ( SUBJAREA , "PHAR" ) OR EXCLUDE ( SUBJAREA , "CHEM" ) ) ↑

2. Note that by volume alone, 2,285 social science articles out of a total output of almost 11,000 articles corresponds to about 20%. However, Scopus uses the All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) system to calculate the disciplines each article best corresponds to. According to this system, articles may be classified under multiple disciplines and may receive fractional weights to each classification resulting in what is considered to be a more accurate categorization. Hence, why according to Scopus’ classifications, the 2,285 social science articles out of a total output of almost 11,000 articles corresponds to almost 12% instead. ↑

3. See: Piwowar, H., Priem, J., Larivière, V., Alperin, J. P., Matthias, L., Norlander, B., ... & Haustein, S. (2018). The state of OA: a large-scale analysis of the prevalence and impact of Open Access articles. PeerJ, 6, e4375. ↑