Foreword

Ritu Dhand and Nicola Jones 

The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have become a powerful lens through which we understand and address society’s most urgent challenges and they now make up 24% of all published research. The issues they address – public health, climate change, renewable energy, environmental protection, economic growth, and societal inequality – were already active areas of academic research long before the introduction of the SDGs in 2015. Recent research from Springer Nature has also shown that a majority of researchers would like “public good” to be taken into account in assessments of their research contributions, in terms of the effect of their work on society, the economy, or global challenges more broadly.ⁱ The Goals provide a common framework for researchers, funders, policymakers, and institutions to measure progress and to demonstrate the real-world impact of research.

At Springer Nature, we see this reflected in our own publishing data. SDG research has grown faster than the broader research market and is more likely to be used, cited, and downloaded, especially when published open access (OA). But the real question is, what impact does SDG research have beyond academia? While the UN’s 2030 Agenda calls for science to inform policy and deliver societal outcomes, there has been, until now, a paucity of evidence showing how published research is actually taken up in policy.ⁱⁱ

That brings us to this latest report, published in partnership with Overton, the world’s largest policy document database. Drawing on more than 12.3 million policy documents published between 2015 and 2025, it explores where, when, and how SDG research is cited in policy, offering a new perspective on the relationship between science and real-world decision-making. This is groundbreaking: while previous studies of the SDGs have considered what an individual research output is about, this study focuses on how research is being used, “on the ground”, to support evidence, justify recommendations, or shape policy directions.

The results are encouraging: academic research is cited in SDG-related policy more often than in wider policy, and in particular, we can see think tanks, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), and Intergovernmental Organizations (IGOs) playing an important role in bridging the gap between research and policy.

This is significant, because we know that policymakers are not – nor should they be expected to be – research experts. It can, therefore, be challenging for research to find its way into policy.ⁱⁱⁱ By understanding the types of research that policymakers cite, we can begin to understand the role that we as publishers play in facilitating greater knowledge exchange.

The report also lays out challenges that require our attention. Research from high-income countries in the Global North makes up the majority of worldwide policy citations. Meanwhile, research from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) in the Global South is less likely to be cited in domestic policy and is also often excluded from the international conversation – aligned with previous findings that development research is dominated by authors from the Global North, even when focused on Global South settings.^iv In addition, few countries examined in the Global South cite each other’s research, highlighting a gap in South-to-South knowledge exchange. This gap risks creating an evidence base for global policy that overlooks the knowledge, priorities, and lived realities of the communities most affected by the SDGs.

As publishers, we have a responsibility to help address this imbalance, collaborating with stakeholders from across the research ecosystem – libraries, institutions, funders, and researchers – to ensure that contextually relevant research is visible, accessible, and actionable. That means supporting journals that value foundational and rigorous science over selectivity (inclusive journals), widening OA options, investing in editor and researcher training to reduce bias, and experimenting with different content formats, as well as working with partners to make research policy-ready so that decision-makers can engage with it effectively.

This report is both a snapshot of progress and a call to action. With 2030 fast approaching, we must collectively do more to ensure that research not only aligns with the SDGs but also extends beyond research communities, to reach the people and places where it can make a real difference.

ⁱ Springer Nature. (2025, April). The state of research assessment: Researcher perspectives on evaluation practices. https://stories.springernature.com/state-of-research-assessment/index.html
ⁱⁱ United Nations. (2015). Transforming our world: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. https://sdgs.un.org/2030agenda
ⁱⁱⁱ Pearson, H. (2024, December 4). Science could solve some of the world’s biggest problems. Why aren’t governments using it? Nature, 636, 26–30. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-03906-0  
^iv Liverpool, L. (2021, September 17). Researchers from global south under-represented in development research. Nature. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02549-9