Almost ten years into my academic journey, I suddenly had one of those questions that academics probably should ask themselves once in a while:
What exactly is my research niche now?
We write papers, supervise students, apply for grants, teach, attend conferences, collaborate here and there…and suddenly, years have passed. 😅
Of course, I know what I am interested in. GIS. Spatial analysis. Urban planning. Social media data. Public sentiment. Green spaces. Well-being. Smart cities.
But are all these things connected?
And more importantly, is the direction I am heading still relevant to where my university wants to go?
So, being a geospatial person, I did what seemed most natural.
I mapped myself. Hahaha.
I searched my name in the Scopus database and conducted a simple bibliometric analysis of my publications. I wanted to see whether my publication history could tell me something that I might not notice simply by looking at my CV.
And surprisingly, it did.
What Did the Numbers Tell Me?
Based on my Scopus publication data from 2014 to 2026, I currently have:
- 39 publications
- 276 citations
- an average of 7.08 citations per publication
The publication trend is also interesting.
My output began quite modestly in the earlier years, before becoming more consistent from 2021 onwards. The highest number of publications was recorded in 2023, with seven papers, while citation activity increased considerably in the following years and reached 91 citations in 2024.
Of course, bibliometric numbers are not everything.
A researcher cannot be measured entirely by how many papers or citations appear in Scopus. Teaching, supervision, community engagement, professional practice and knowledge transfer are equally important parts of being an academic.
Still, bibliometrics give us something useful:
a mirror.
They allow us to stop for a while and look at the direction in which our research has actually travelled.
And that was the part I found most interesting.
My Research Map Tells a Story
When I generated the keyword network of my publications using VOSviewer, I could actually see my academic journey. The older part of the network contains terms such as:
surveying, remote sensing, digital elevation model, hydrological modelling, watersheds, geomorphology, floods and GIS.
This makes perfect sense.
My original training was in Geomatic Engineering, so my early research naturally had a strong technical and physical-spatial orientation. At that stage, my research questions were largely about:
Where is something located?
How can it be measured?
How accurately can we represent it spatially?
GIS, remote sensing, surveying and spatial data were the foundation. But slowly, the map began to change.
Terms such as geographic information systems, spatial pattern, data mining, social networking, COVID-19 and daily routines began appearing.
Then the more recent part of the network became even more interesting.
I started seeing:
social media, sentiment analysis, perception, subjective well-being, parks, spatial analysis, urban planning, sustainability, land use and urbanisation.
That is when I realised something.
My niche did not change. It matured.
I am still working with geospatial information. But the question has moved beyond simply asking:
“Where is it?”
Now I am increasingly asking:
“Why is it happening there?”
“How do people experience that place?”
“What spatial patterns can we identify from human behaviour and perception?”
and ultimately,
“How can this evidence support better urban planning?”
That, I think, describes my research direction much better today.
So, What Is My Niche?
If I had to summarise it now, I would describe my niche as (the closest suggestion from Ai):
Human-Centred Geospatial Analytics for Sustainable Urban Planning and Well-being
It brings together several things that have consistently appeared throughout my academic journey.
Geospatial science and spatial modelling remain my technical foundation.
GIS and urban planning provide the application context.
Social media, digital data and sentiment analysis allow me to capture human perceptions and experiences.
And increasingly, sustainability, urban well-being, green-blue spaces and smart-city planning provide the larger societal questions that I want my research to address.
In other words, I am interested not only in mapping the city.
I am interested in mapping how people experience the city — and using that information to make planning better.
That feels much closer to who I am as a researcher today.
But Where Should I Go Next? (Fully analysed with the help of Ai)
This reflection becomes even more important when I look at UTM ASCEND 2030.
UTM’s vision is to be A Premier University Providing World-Class Education and Research, supported by four major pillars:
Leap in Niche Excellence, Global Talent, Sustainability, and Humanity & Well-being.
When I place my bibliometric map beside the ASCEND 2030 strategy, I can actually see several opportunities.
The next step is therefore not to suddenly create a completely new niche.
The strategy should be to strengthen, focus and elevate the niche that is already emerging.
1. Stop Being Too Wide: Build a Recognisable Signature
This is probably my first reminder to myself. 😆 Academics are naturally curious people. Everything looks interesting.
GIS? Yes.
Social media? Yes.
Urban planning? Yes.
AI? Yes.
AR? Also yes.
Green spaces? Of course.
Smart cities? Why not?
The danger is that after ten years, we may have many interesting projects but no clear research identity.
Under Leap in Niche Excellence, I think my strategy should now be consolidation.
Instead of treating GIS, social-media analytics, urban well-being and sustainable planning as separate interests, I need to position them under one recognisable research umbrella.
For me, that umbrella is:
Human-Centred Geospatial Urban Analytics
Then different research projects can sit underneath it. For example:
Geospatial Analytics
→ GIS, spatial statistics, spatial modelling, remote sensing
Urban Digital Data
→ social media, online reviews, sentiment analysis, AI-assisted analysis
Sustainable Urban Planning
→ green-blue spaces, land use, smart cities, climate resilience
Human Experience and Well-being
→ perception, behaviour, accessibility, inclusivity and quality of place
Suddenly, everything looks less scattered.
2. Move From “Publishing Research” to Producing Research With Impact
The next important direction relates strongly to Humanity & Well-being.
I have become increasingly interested in data generated by ordinary people — what they say about parks, cities, public spaces, disasters and their everyday experiences.
This is valuable because planning traditionally relies heavily on official datasets.
But people themselves are also sensors of the city.
Their comments, movements, perceptions and experiences provide another layer of urban information.
My next strategy should therefore be to push this research further towards community impact.
Rather than ending a study with:
“The findings may assist policymakers…”
I want more studies where the next sentence becomes:
“Here is the tool, map, dashboard, framework or planning recommendation that policymakers can actually use.”
That would bring research closer to the ASCEND 2030 aspiration for R&D-driven community transformation.
3. Make Sustainability a Stronger Part of the Research Identity
The bibliometric map already shows newer connections with:
sustainability, parks, subjective well-being, land use, urbanisation and urban planning.
This is a direction worth strengthening.
GIS is particularly powerful because sustainability problems are fundamentally spatial.
Where are communities vulnerable?
Where are green spaces lacking?
Which neighbourhoods have poor accessibility?
Where are development pressures occurring?
Where should interventions be prioritised?
These are all geographical questions.
Moving towards 2030, I would like more of my work to sit at the intersection of:
people + place + technology + sustainability.
This connects naturally with UTM’s Sustainability pillar and its emphasis on sustainable and intelligent environments.
4. Use Technology: But Don’t Let Technology Become the Research Question
Another reminder to myself.
There will always be another technology.
Today it is AI, big data and augmented reality.
Tomorrow…who knows? 😅
Technology is important, but I do not want my research identity to become:
“I use this software.”
Instead, technology should remain the enabler.
The real research question should remain centred on cities and people.
For example, instead of asking:
“How can AI be used in urban planning?”
I prefer questions such as:
“How can AI-assisted geospatial analysis help planners better understand community perceptions of urban environments?”
The technology may change.
The research problem remains meaningful.
5. Build a Research Ecosystem, Not Just Individual Papers
This is perhaps the biggest strategy for the next phase of my academic career.
The first ten years were about building experience.
The next phase should be about building a research ecosystem.
That means connecting:
research → postgraduate students → grants → publications → datasets → tools → community → local authorities → international collaborators.
Instead of every student’s research being completely different, postgraduate projects can contribute different pieces to a larger research agenda.
One student may study urban green-space perception.
Another may examine social-media sentiment.
Another may develop spatial models.
Another may work on smart-city decision support.
Different topics — but one bigger research direction.
Over time, this is how a niche becomes visible.
6. Become Known for Something
ASCEND 2030 also emphasises subject-matter expertise and scholarly excellence.
This is probably the question I should ask myself more often:
When somebody sees my name, what research area should immediately come to mind?
Not ten things. Perhaps two or three strongly connected things. I would like them to be:
GIS and spatial analytics.
Human-centred urban data.
Sustainable urban planning and well-being.
That means being more strategic about the journals I publish in, the conferences I attend, the postgraduate students I supervise and even the keywords I repeatedly use in my publications.
Academic visibility does not come only from publishing more.
It also comes from consistency.
And Maybe This Is Why We Need to Check Our Academic Compass
After almost ten years in academia, this little bibliometric exercise turned out to be much more meaningful than I expected.
Initially, I simply wanted to see my publication network.
Instead, I saw my academic journey.
From surveying and remote sensing, to GIS and spatial modelling, then towards urban planning, social-media analytics, public perception, sustainability and well-being.
The tools have changed.
The datasets have changed.
The research questions have become more human.
But the geographical way of thinking has remained.
Perhaps that is my real niche.
Understanding people and cities through the lens of space.
Moving towards UTM ASCEND 2030, my goal therefore is not to reinvent myself.
It is to become more focused, more visible and more impactful in the direction that my own research journey has already revealed.
And maybe every few years, I should do this exercise again.
After all, maps are useful not only for showing us where we are.
Sometimes, they also help us decide where we should go next. 😊Wahhhh soooo panjang.
