Mapping the scientific base for SDGs and digital technologies

In 2015, the UN General Assembly adopted the "2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development" containing 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to achieve a sustainable, fair, and inclusive future for people worldwide by 2030. With less than 10 years left, Science, technology, and innovation (STI) are among the key enablers for the achievement of the 2030 Agenda's ambitions. This report provides first evidence of the emergence of scientific research that jointly studies SDGs and Digital Technologies (DTs). The combination of SDGs and DTs in scientific research is a recent development that has surfaced over the past ten years and is rapidly expanding. The growth is driven by scientific advancements in research jointly addressing SDG7 (Affordable and clean energy) and Internet of Things, and SDG13 (Climate change) and artificial intelligence. While China and the United States are the major players in scientific research in these domains, the European Union as a whole produces more scientific publications than any single country, including China and the United States, in the SDGs and SDGS-DTs domains, while China leads with regards to DTs. Yet, fully realizing the potential of EU scientific research for sustainable development requires improvements in the integration of national research systems enabling the exploitation of scale and scope economies that Member States cannot achieve in isolation.