Statistics

These pages provide statistics about how many research publications are related to the sustainable development goals, both at a national level (Norway) and institutional level.

Whether a publication is considered related to the SDGs is decided by our mapping. The statistics are based on our broadest mapping; see About this service - Mapping methodology for information.

Interpreting statistics about SDG-related research

Generally, statistics about SDG-related publishing should be treated an estimate rather than an exact result.

There are a number of methods available or under development for mapping and counting SDG-related research. However, research has shown that different mappings of SDG-"related" research do not agree very well (Armitage, Lorenz & Mikki 2020 (opens in a new tab), Purnell 2022 (opens in a new tab), Turunen, Huuskonen & Sandgren 2023 (opens in a new tab)). This is perhaps unsurprising when you consider that there are different ways to interpret what an SDG covers, different viewpoints on which research themes should be counted as "related", different mapping methods, and different data sources (see our previous work, Armitage, Lorenz & Mikki 2020 (opens in a new tab)). For example, should SDG 3 Good health cover all medical research? Does SDG 13 Climate Action cover basic climate science? You will probably get different answers depending on who you ask.

Each mapping method will give a specific viewpoint, and methods will vary with regards to coverage and precision. It can therefore be a good idea to ensure you are familiar with the scope of the mapping you are using, and consider using more than one method. Documentation of our mapping (scope, what we aim to cover, and data sources) can be found under About this service - Mapping methodology and under Search strings.