Journal of African Development

This study presents a bibliometric analysis of global research on social entrepreneurship and sustainable development using publications indexed in the Scopus database. A total of 664 documents, comprising 362 articles, 184 book chapters, and 118 conference papers published between 2003 and 2026, were analyzed using Biblioshiny and VOSviewer. The findings reveal a substantial increase in scientific production after 2019, with the highest publication output recorded in 2025, indicating rapidly growing scholarly interest in the field. The dataset involved 1,764 authors, an average of 2.85 co-authors per document, and an international co-authorship rate of 23.04%, demonstrating the collaborative and globally connected nature of the research domain. Sustainability (Switzerland) emerged as the leading publication source, while Dieguez T, Ramírez-Montoya M.S., Sergi B.S., and Tien N.H. were identified as the most productive authors. The keyword analysis showed that social entrepreneurship, sustainable development, sustainability, social enterprise, social innovation, and entrepreneurship constitute the central intellectual structure of the field. Trend topics and the thematic map revealed a shift from traditional themes such as business models, corporate social responsibility, and development toward emerging areas including digital transformation, circular economy, sustainable business models, poverty alleviation, social entrepreneurial intention, women empowerment, and the Sustainable Development Goals. The study concludes that future research should give greater attention to digital technologies, impact measurement, climate resilience, educational innovation, gender equality, rural and Indigenous entrepreneurship, and the development of inclusive policy and support systems for sustainable social enterprises