Addressing grand challenges with science

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), outlined in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development by the United Nations (UN), offer a roadmap for a better world. The 17 SDGs aim to eliminate hunger, promote health and well-being, ensure access to clean water and energy, address needs for quality education and equality, tackle climate change, and protect life on land and in the oceans. They address humanity’s challenges, and are a universal call to protect the planet and improve lives.

The complexity of the SDGs means that many of the goals need to be addressed through social, political and financial changes. Science and technology are vital to this process, according to the 2016 Global Sustainable Development Report¹. Advances in nanotechnology could help improve battery storage or water filtration; developments in Earth sciences could inform natural resource policy; and breakthroughs in medicine could impact healthcare. Addressing the SDGs therefore requires interdisciplinary research: collaboration among natural and social scientists, policy-makers, and industry leaders. To support this process, the UN established a Technology Facilitation Mechanism, of which the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) is part, to improve sharing of information, experience, best practice and policy advice².

In 2016, China released a national plan to help implementation of the SDGs³, and CAS, the country’s leading research institution, is in support of this. An example is a report, Big Earth Data in Support of the Sustainable Development Goals, published by CAS in 2019. In its preface, Chunli Bai, then president of CAS, spoke of his ambition that the project can “provide new analytical tools and data infrastructures for understanding complex and interconnected sustainability issues”⁴. The report was updated in 2020, releasing new findings from the Big Earth Data Science Engineering programme.

The questions then are, how has CAS’s research contributed to addressing the SDGs? In which SDGs is it strongest and weakest? And how does CAS compare with other leading research institutions in SDG-related research? This report examines these questions using publication data from the Dimensions database, for 2008 to 2018, to align CAS’s research output with the 17 SDGs. It also explores case studies to highlight how CAS’s research contributes to developing solutions to some of the most pressing global challenges.

Measuring contribution to SDGs is not easy. Research publications are just one aspect, and may not directly translate into solutions. But reviewing CAS’s output in this way can help guide future research, leading to more innovations that support sustainable development.