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Only one in 10 research papers tied to sustainability

‘Encouraging and concerning’ signs as Sustainable Development Goals make slow gains in academic world

University researchers published half a million papers related to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals last year, but are only slowly adapting their work to meet these globally agreed targets for improvements in education, health and other topics.

While that number has trebled since 2000, when the UN introduced the predecessors to SDGs, called Millennium Development Goals, it remains low, said CEO of Digital Science, Daniel Hook. The 500,000 papers identified in a study by Hook—published on 7 May—represent just 10 per cent of the world’s research output for 2019.

The UN says the 17 SDGs, which include such goals as gender equality and zero hunger, are “a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet”. Hook calls the two decades of growth in research relating to them both “encouraging and concerning”.

“The fact that only 10 per cent of global research is going into SDGs when it is such a critical part of puzzle—that’s quite fascinating to me,” he said. “I would have thought that the university sector would have pushed more in aligning research to SDGs.” 

Although it is difficult to make general, global statements, countries’ research footprints tend to play to their research strengths as well as reflecting their political priorities, Hook found.

Overall, research is “domestically focused rather than internationally collaborative”.

Although the US has held its position as the largest producer of SDG research globally in 2020 with sustainability reflected in 12.2 per cent of its output, China’s research footprint has grown rapidly and it is now the second-largest SDG-research power, with 12.5 of its research related to SDGs—a slightly higher portion than in the US, although for a lower research output.

Hook commended countries such as India, which has doubled-down on SDG research, bringing its output to 14.9 per cent and rising to fourth place in the world by amount of research, following the US, China and UK.

“SDGs are clearly something where India recognises the need and importance of SDGs, and engages,” he said. “I think that’s tremendously heartening.”

He said studies that use evaluate SDGs can help world leaders to “look beyond GDP” as a way of measuring their countries’ progress.

“We are at critical time in history,” said Hook. “Specifically in a post Covid-19 world, I expect SDGs to become much more important.”