Over the last decade, Virtual Reality (VR) has evolved from a speculative frontier to a cross-disciplinary research domain with applications ranging from education and healthcare to engineering, design, and psychology (Tang, 2023; Wu, 2024). This widespread adoption has been accompanied by a surge in systematic reviews aiming to synthesize emerging findings and offer meta-level reflections on the promises and challenges of VR. While these reviews serve as critical instruments for consolidating fragmented knowledge, their increasing volume and thematic diversity raise the need for a higher-order synthesis—one that not only aggregates what has been said, but also maps how, where, and by whom it is being said (Deng & Wang, 2023; Kumar & Shweta, 2024). Traditional review-of-reviews or narrative meta-syntheses, while valuable, often fall short in revealing deeper relational structures such as authorial influence, institutional networks, and topical convergence (Aziz, 2028; Kaminska et al., 2022).

To address this need, the present study conducts a bibliometric analysis of 1870 systematic review articles indexed in the Web of Science (WoS) Core Collection between 2020 (01.01.2020) and 2024 (31.12.2024), all of which focus explicitly on Virtual Reality across various fields. Articles with the document type “Review Article” with the author keywords “Virtual Reality” in journals indexed in WoS were analyzed. The analysis incorporates VOSviewer to explore co-authorship networks, co-citation patterns, and keyword co-occurrence, while also classifying studies by WoS categories, document types, publication years, index classifications, countries of origin, research areas, and alignment with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This combined methodology—bridging bibliometric mapping with meta-review logic—allows for the visualization of both structural and semantic trends within the VR research ecosystem (Kumar & Shweta, 2024; Wu, 2024). In particular, the study offers insight into which nations and institutions are leading systematic inquiry into VR, which topics are consolidating or fragmenting, and how collaborative dynamics are shaping knowledge production.

By synthesizing a meta-level overview of VR-related systematic reviews, this study contributes to the ongoing methodological discourse on how emerging research fields can be mapped and interpreted at scale. The findings offer a strategic overview for researchers seeking to navigate the VR literature, as well as for institutions and funding bodies aiming to align their priorities with evolving knowledge domains. Furthermore, the identification of underrepresented regions, emerging conceptual clusters, and influential scholarly networks can serve as a springboard for future research planning. Ultimately, this study underscores the role of bibliometric analysis not only as a diagnostic tool for scholarly ecosystems, but also as a guiding framework for building more inclusive, coherent, and forward-looking research agendas in the age of complex innovation.

Keywords: Virtual Reality, Systematic Reviews, Bibliometric Analysis, Knowledge Mapping, Research Trends.