The field of industry–university research cooperation policy is about to enter a new stage. It is necessary to systematically sort and summarize the literature, both at home and abroad, that has been produced in recent years. Through knowledge map analysis of the current situation regarding the development of industry–university research cooperation policy, from both domestic and foreign perspectives, taking the core documents included in the Web of Science and China National Knowledge Infrastructure database as samples, and through visual research on the time context, author, organization, theme, and other key nodes of industry–university research cooperation policy research, with the help of CiteSpace and NoteExpress measurement software, we can draw the following conclusions. Domestic research is relatively focused on colleges and universities; that is, industry–university research cooperation as a mechanism to cultivate innovative talents and improve scientific research and enhance social services, while foreign countries pay more attention to the technological utilization and technological innovation of enterprises and their accompanying economic benefits. Domestic and foreign research have their own characteristics, and the research quality of the two is equal. Generally speaking, research on the policy of domestic university research cooperation should focus on the following three points in the future: It must be closely related to the functions of colleges and universities, the nature of enterprises, and social needs; we must attach great importance to empirical research; and we must pay attention to cross-organizational research.

To further promote the effective governance of rural human settlements in China, it is necessary to summarize and organize the research on rural human settlements that has been undertaken in the last decade. This paper analyzes the current status of rural human settlements research from the perspectives of Chinese literature and English literature. It takes the core documents included in WOS (Web of Science) and CNKI (Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure) as samples, and produces a visual analysis of the authors, institutions, disciplines, and research hotspots for rural human settlements research with the help of CiteSpace V and other measurement software, focus on identifying the similarities and differences between CNKI and WOS in the study of rural human settlements. The results show that the number of papers is increasing; cooperation between Chinese researchers and institutions needs to be further strengthened; the existing research has achieved interdisciplinary integration; the research hotspots are converging, but China pays more attention to the study of the hard environment, such as the macro level of rural human settlements and the natural ecological environments of residence, and lacks insight into the soft environment, such as the main body of residences, social relations, and individual needs in the urban fringe. This study is conducive to promoting the integrated development of urban and rural areas in China, promoting the revitalization and development of rural areas in China, and achieving social equity.

In this paper, CiteSpace and NVivo software were used for the knowledge graph visualization and content analysis of highly cited papers in the research literature on reclaimed water utilization policy in CNKI and WOS. The results showed the following: there was an upward trend in the number of papers on reclaimed water policy, papers in both databases attached great importance to research on this topic, and the research prospects for this topic are broad. The UK, Greece, Italy, the United States, and France have great influence in the field of reclaimed water utilization policy research. The international influence of China’s research on the topic needs to be improved. There is a lack of communication and cooperation among the subjects of reclaimed water utilization policy research, and a cooperative network with close and benign interactions has not yet been formed. The research hotspots of the topic in China are mainly focused on regional governance, with insufficient attention paid to policy and management, while foreign countries pay more attention to policy and management. Behavior guidance policy and black and smelly water will become research hotspots for domestic policies, while public perception, demand, drinking water, and carbon will become research hotspots for international policies. Domestic research on reclaimed water use policy in highly cited papers focused on water environment and ecological security management, while international research focused on the background of reclaimed water use policy and its implementation, with the main intention of optimizing the ascension path and making international research policies thematically stronger. The attitudes of domestic and foreign researchers regarding reclaimed water utilization policies are mainly rational and emotional, indicating that current policies have a degree of applicability. However, there are also obvious problems that will need to be addressed and improved, and there are substantial development prospects. In the future, research on reclaimed water utilization policies in China should strengthen top-level design, improve the policy system, and increase the supervision of policies to achieve optimization.

Amid the compounded impacts of climate change, economic volatility, and sudden shocks, small and medium-sized cities (SMSCs) have become a critical yet frequently overlooked weak link in urban resilience research. Objective assessment of resilience in SMSCs is essential for improving the design and effectiveness of resilience-building policies. Following China’s official city-size classification criteria—i.e., using urban-district resident population as the statistical basis and defining SMSCs as cities with less than 1 million urban-district residents—this study examines 510 Chinese SMSCs from 2012 to 2023. An entropy-weighted Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) method is employed to construct an urban resilience index. Subsequently, spatiotemporal disparities are characterized using nonparametric kernel density estimation and Dagum Gini coefficient decomposition. The results indicate that: (1) from 2012 to 2023, the resilience index of Chinese SMSCs rose from 0.1108 to 0.1121, with an average annual growth rate of 0.1067%. Overall resilience remains low, and the increase is modest, showing a clear regional gradient of Eastern > Central > Western > Northeastern China. (2) Spatiotemporal differentiation reveals the fastest growth in the Eastern region, a similar trajectory in the Central region, slower growth in the Western region, and a decline in the Northeastern region, reinforcing a pattern of gradient divergence. Within-region disparities generally converged, whereas between-region disparities expanded markedly; nonetheless, the transvariation (overlapping) component remained the primary contributor to overall inequality. (3) The resilience of Chinese SMSCs may face a potential Matthew-effect risk driven by the interaction of scale disadvantage and regional disadvantage. These findings provide evidence to support policies aimed at enhancing resilience in SMSCs and inform the development of differentiated resilience-building strategies across regions.