Dynamic linkages between climate-related policy uncertainty and knowledge systems: implications for climate resilience and sustainable development

Climate-related uncertainty is increasingly shaping investment, planning and adaptation decisions, yet its interaction with the scientific knowledge that supports climate-resilient development remains insufficiently examined. This study investigates how multiple policy- and market-based uncertainty measures relate to the evolution of research productivity and impact in climate- and energy-relevant fields. Using a corpus of 8,540 Scopus-indexed publications produced over roughly three decades, we construct quarterly bibliometric indicators and link them to Energy-Related Uncertainty (EUI) indices for 28 countries and two global aggregates, along with complementary climate and oil-market uncertainty proxies. Combining static and rolling Granger causality with wavelet coherence, we assess when uncertainty predicts changes in research activity and when scientific outputs feed back into uncertainty measures. Two broad patterns emerge. EUI predicts at least one research indicator in 18 countries, while research indicators predict EUI movements in 21, with bidirectional links in 15 cases. These associations are strongest for citation-weighted metrics and appear mainly over multi-year frequencies, suggesting that uncertainty–knowledge interactions unfold gradually rather than through short-lived shocks. Together, the results indicate that uncertainty can stimulate knowledge creation, while sustained research capacity contributes to more stable and adaptive policy environments.