A systematic literature review on transparency in the mining industry reveals many under-researched topics

• We considered ‘transparency’ as access to information and public participation. • Literature about transparency in the mining sector was grouped into 6 clusters. • 8 under-studied topics where identified. • Disclosure and participation on tailings management is an understudied topic. • Under the lights of the findings, recommendations for future research are presented. Local communities, civil society organizations, and investors have been calling for transparency in the mining sector, but research falls behind real-world development. Here, a systematic literature review was conducted to identify the major areas of research on transparency in the mining industry. A comprehensive search was made in the Web of Science, Scopus, and Science Direct databases, resulting in 15,994 articles. Screening resulted in 945 articles, which were grouped by analyzing their titles, keywords, and abstracts using the lexical software IraMuTeq. This study originally identified six notable topics of transparency in the mining sector on a six-cluster dendrogram, which may assist upcoming research. The largest cluster was “Community participation”, contrasting with the smallest cluster about “Accountability and participation in deep sea mining”, considered an under-researched area with 20 articles. Other understudied areas were revealed, which should be addressed by future research about transparency in mining, expected to grow due to the energy transition.