Progress by research to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals in the EU: A Systematic Literature Review

Scientific research has been acknowledged to play a pivotal role in achieving the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda. Vince-versa, it has been reinvigorating the academic production on sustainable development since its adoption. This study aims to provide a Systematic Literature Review of the approaches most used and developed by scientific research to support the achievement of the SDGs in the European Union. The results are presented by descriptive, bibliometric, and content analysis. The descriptive analysis highlights a rising interest of scholars in operationalizing the 2030 Agenda, especially at urban level. We used a text mining-based tool to scan the most investigated SDGs in selected papers. Major interest by scholars is devoted to environmental concerns (especially on SDG 7, 13, 6, 12, 15), while social issues (such as SDG 4, 5, 10) still deserve more research. The bibliometric analysis highlights poor intra-cluster connections, claiming more transdisciplinary research. Most recurrent topics in the research on the SDGs in the EU regard governance, circular economy, ecosystem services, urban localization, and decision-making. We advise future studies to focus on gaps highlighted and adopt a system perspective, boosting policy coherence across government levels and scales of implementation by looking at trade-offs and assessing context-specific priorities.

TRANE Matteo;  MARELLI Luisa;  SIRAGUSA Alice;  POLLO Riccardo;  LOMBARDI Patrizia; 

2023-06-12

MDPI

JRC132860

2071-1050 (online),   

https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/9/7055,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC132860,   

10.3390/su15097055 (online),