Discovery Research Portal: highlighting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

The latest upgrade to the Discovery Research Portal allows us to display how University of Dundee research supports the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Goals were established in 2015, with the intention of setting global goals to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all.

The University of Dundee was placed in the top 50 in the world in the 2020 edition of the Times Higher Education University Impact Rankings, which measure the global higher education sector’s success in delivering the SDGs.

The rankings included more than 800 universities worldwide. Dundee was ranked 44th overall and 9th in the world against the Sustainable Development Goal of Good Health & Wellbeing (Goal 3). In the 2021 edition, Dundee is ranked 5th in the world from more than 1100 universities on the goal of Climate Action (Goal 13).

The Discovery Portal shows the overall commitment to the SDGs on its home page:

SDG flags on Discovery home page.

SDG flags are also available on Personal Profile pages to illustrate an individual researcher’s involvement with particular Goals:

SDG flags on an individual profile page.

Flags are also present on research output records:

SDG flags on research output record.

Filters to identify researchers and outputs with particular SDGs are also available. Two standard reports are available:

  • Number of Research Outputs per SDG (how many research outputs have been published within each of the Sustainable Development Goals)
  • SDG overview (how well University organisations / Schools are meeting the individual Sustainable Development Goals)

Other, customised reports, using the SDG information can also be constructed.

Further development of this SDG functionality is expected in future releases of the software, and the Discovery team will post updates on these as they occur.

If you would like any further information on this new feature, please contact us at discovery@dundee.ac.uk