Scientific research driven by large-scale infrastructure projects: A case study of the Three Gorges Project in China

Large-scale infrastructure projects have important strategic positions in economy and social development, especially in developing countries, and are growing constantly larger and more complex. During the life cycle of a large-scale infrastructure project, technological problems and environmental and socio-economic impacts drive relevant scientific research. However, few empirical studies have been conducted to examine the interaction between project and research. In this paper, we use the Three Gorges Project (TGP), which is the world's largest hydropower project, as a case study to find the patterns of scientific research on specific large-scale infrastructure projects. Text mining and other quantitative methods have been used to reveal: (1) the growth of the publication outputs of the TGP relevant research, (2) major research topics and their temporal trends and (3) the effects of language and corresponding author's nationality on topic proportions in papers. We find that topics of engineering issues were discussed more in domestic journals and in earlier stage of the project's life cycle. Meanwhile, topics of environmental issues were discussed more in international journals and became increasingly popular during the life cycle of the project. These findings are useful for policy-makers and project managers to better establish collaborations with the academia and to more properly allocate resources in future project management practices.