This article uses CiteSpace to conduct a cluster analysis of nearly 8 years’ documents from the International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education in the ISI Web of Science. The study finds that the international research of sustainability in university include four hot topics: the case study of sustainable development of universities, cultivation of environmental literacy of university students, implementation and evaluation methods of sustainable development in engineering education, conceptualization of sustainability ability and teaching strategies. The evolution of international sustainable higher education research can be divided into three stages: before 2010, the research focus is university students’ environmental literacy and environmental education; from 2010 to 2013, the focus is on the potential of the university itself as a sustainable development innovator; since 2013, more attention has paid to the acquisition of students’ sustainable development ability, the external practice learning and community collaboration get widespread attention as an important teaching strategy. In the hot topics, the advanced research includes the cultivation of sustainable development ability of university students and the curriculum design for sustainable literacy.