Purpose

The development of Open Science has significantly transformed scholarly communication by encouraging transparency, accessibility, collaboration, and shared research infrastructures. Alongside the expansion of Open Access publishing, increasing scholarly attention has been directed toward governance models, community-oriented initiatives, and sustainable research infrastructures supporting open scholarly ecosystems. The purpose of this paper is to map the intellectual and thematic structure of research related to Open Science, Open Access, and scholarly communication, with a particular focus on governance, community, and infrastructure dimensions. The study further examines whether the evolution of the literature reflects a conceptual transition from Open Access as a publishing model toward Open Science as a broader scholarly ecosystem characterised by governance structures, collaborative communities, and shared research infrastructures.

Methodology/Approach

The study applies descriptive bibliometric indicators and science mapping methods to publications indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection (all editions). Data retrieval was conducted using a Topic search (titles, abstracts, author keywords, and Keywords Plus) combining the terms “open science,” “open access,” and “open scholarly communication” with governance-, community-, and infrastructure-related concepts. The dataset was refined according to publication type, language, and Web of Science subject categories, resulting in a corpus of 5,276 scientific publications published between 1966 and 2026. Data analysis was conducted using Biblioshiny and VOSviewer. The analysis included descriptive bibliometric indicators, annual scientific production, keyword co-occurrence analysis, thematic evolution, co-authorship patterns, and geographical distribution of scientific production.

Findings

The results indicate a substantial growth in scientific production related to Open Science ecosystems, particularly after 2010, with a significant increase observed after 2020. The annual growth rate of publications reached 8.8%, confirming the increasing importance of collaborative and infrastructure-oriented approaches in scholarly communication. The dataset includes 5,276 documents published across 360 scientific sources by 14,533 authors, with an average of 3.49 co-authors per document and an international co-authorship rate of 23.58%.

The analysis identified dominant research themes associated with Open Access, institutional repositories, scholarly communication, governance, research infrastructures, and community engagement. Thematic clustering revealed several interconnected research areas, including infrastructure and repository development, governance and policy frameworks, collaborative scholarly ecosystems, and digital transformation in research communication. The thematic evolution suggests that the research field has progressively expanded beyond Open Access publishing towards a broader Open Science ecosystem in which governance, collaborative communities, and shared infrastructures represent central components of scholarly communication. Rather than reflecting only an increase in publication volume, the findings indicate a conceptual broadening of scholarly communication research towards ecosystem-oriented perspectives integrating policy, sustainability, collaboration, and community participation. The geographical distribution of publications indicates strong research activity in the United States, China, the United Kingdom, and several European countries, reflecting the global expansion of Open Science initiatives and collaborative scholarly networks.

Originality/Value

This study provides a systematic overview of the development and thematic evolution of governance-, community-, and infrastructure-oriented Open Science research. By combining descriptive bibliometric indicators with science mapping techniques, the paper contributes to understanding how scholarly communication research increasingly incorporates ecosystem, sustainability, and collaboration perspectives. The findings demonstrate that the evolution of Open Science research is characterised not only by quantitative growth but also by a conceptual shift from publication-centred openness towards ecosystem-oriented models integrating governance, collaborative infrastructures, and scholarly communities. The findings highlight the growing role of international collaboration and community-driven infrastructures in shaping the future development of Open Science and scholarly communication practices.