Co-occurrence of terms in scientific productions related to the local history of Azerbaijan in Iranian Scientific Journals

Background and aim: Bibliographic analysis by describing the status of publications and identifying emerging issues plays an important role in research evaluation. The aim of the present research is to draw the scientific collaboration networks of researchers, organizations, and scientific centers and the co-occurrence of scientific terms in articles related to the local history of Azerbaijan in Iranian Scientific Journals from 2011 to 2021. Materials and methods: This descriptive-analytical research is of bibliometric type. The samples include 111 scientific articles about the local history of Azerbaijan from 2011 to 2021, published in the country's scientific publications. The drawing of the scientific collaboration network of researchers, organizations, and scientific centers, as well as co-occurrence network analysis of scientific terms were done using VOSviewer. Findings: The scientific centers of the Northwest had the most participation in publishing articles. There is a significant relationship between the scientific rank of researchers and their scientific participation (P-value=0.021). In terms of historical periods, the Qajar period and, in terms of subject matter, political history attracted the most attention from researchers. Moreover, the universities of Tabriz, Azerbaijan Shahid Madani, and the Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies produced the most articles. The words "Azerbaijan" and "Tabriz" had the highest frequency of repetitions in the articles on the history of Azerbaijan. In terms of the co-occurrence of terms, the focus has been mostly on the Qajar period and especially the Nasrid period. Conclusion: The trend of publishing articles about the local history of Azerbaijan has quadrupled in the studied period. Despite this upward trend, some historical periods and important topics have not been given much attention due to the lack of resources and certain challenges. It seems that the reason why professors and researchers paid more attention to the subject, in addition to local tendencies, was a better understanding of regional issues.