---
title: "Sustainable Development Goals research: papers and trends"
description: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “Sustainable Development Goals” appeared in 1,501 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in economics (607), management (404) and operations research (138)."
url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/sustainable-development-goals
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/sustainable-development-goals.md
license: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)
share_text: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “Sustainable Development Goals” appeared in 1,501 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in economics (607), management (404) and operations research (138). (as of 2026-11-03)"
data_url: https://scholar4ai.com/data/rankings.json
updated: 2026-11-03T18:03:37+09:00
window: 2026-10-05 to 2026-11-03
source: OpenAlex (CC0)
---

# Papers on “Sustainable Development Goals”

Research on “Sustainable Development Goals” in the 480 tracked journals: papers per year and category, the journals, institutions and countries publishing it, the keywords studied with it and its most-cited papers. It is not among the most frequent keywords of the last 30 days, so this page has no list of its latest papers.

Back to the ranking: https://scholar4ai.com/rankings/keywords.md

## Key findings

- From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “Sustainable Development Goals” appeared in 1,501 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in economics (607), management (404) and operations research (138).
- 270 of them were published in 2025, against 43 in 2017.
- Since 2023, the institutions with the most of these papers were Lebanese American University (19), Azerbaijan State University of Economics (12) and Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (10).
- The journals publishing most of them were Resources Policy (70), Technological Forecasting and Social Change (41) and Annals of Operations Research (39).
- The most-cited of them is “Three frames for innovation policy: R&D, systems of innovation and transformative change” (Research Policy, 2018), with 1,812 citations.

## Papers per year

*Papers per publication year and category*

| Category | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 (so far) |
|---|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|
| [Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/economics.md) | 20 | 23 | 53 | 45 | 64 | 70 | 89 | 97 | 84 | 62 |
| [Management](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/management.md) | 14 | 3 | 18 | 37 | 27 | 51 | 50 | 55 | 81 | 68 |
| [Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/operations-research.md) | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 14 | 3 | 26 | 28 | 32 | 25 |
| [Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/finance.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 10 | 26 | 28 | 22 |
| [Health Economics and Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/health-economics-and-policy.md) | 6 | 8 | 5 | 7 | 8 | 7 | 2 | 9 | 7 | 7 |
| [Higher Education and Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/higher-education-and-research.md) | 0 | 1 | 1 | 8 | 2 | 6 | 3 | 5 | 8 | 9 |
| [Tourism and Hospitality](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/tourism-and-hospitality.md) | 0 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 7 | 2 | 5 | 9 | 1 |
| [Marketing](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/marketing.md) | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 13 | 5 | 9 | 2 |
| [Information Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/information-systems.md) | 1 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 7 | 9 | 2 | 3 |
| [AI](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/ai.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 7 | 6 |
| [Accounting](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/accounting.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 2 |
| All categories | 43 | 39 | 86 | 115 | 130 | 159 | 207 | 245 | 270 | 207 |

## Where the papers come from

*Journals with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Journal | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Resources Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/resources-policy.md) | 70 |
| 2 | [Technological Forecasting and Social Change](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/technological-forecasting-and-social-change.md) | 41 |
| 3 | [Annals of Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/annals-of-operations-research.md) | 39 |
| 4 | [The International Journal of Management Education](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/the-international-journal-of-management-education.md) | 31 |
| 5 | [Journal of Innovation & Knowledge](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-innovation-knowledge.md) | 31 |
| 6 | [Energy Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/energy-policy.md) | 30 |
| 7 | [Energy Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/energy-economics.md) | 26 |
| 8 | [Socio-Economic Planning Sciences](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/socio-economic-planning-sciences.md) | 24 |
| 9 | [Journal of Open Innovation Technology Market and Complexity](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-open-innovation-technology-market-and-complexity.md) | 24 |
| 10 | [World Development](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/world-development.md) | 21 |

*Institutions with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Institution | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Lebanese American University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/lebanese-american-university.md) | 19 |
| 2 | Azerbaijan State University of Economics | 12 |
| 3 | Universidad Rey Juan Carlos | 10 |
| 4 | [Universidade de São Paulo](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/universidade-de-sao-paulo.md) | 10 |
| 5 | European University of Lefke | 9 |
| 6 | [Sunway University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/sunway-university.md) | 9 |
| 7 | [Tsinghua University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/tsinghua-university.md) | 9 |
| 8 | [University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/university-of-economics-ho-chi-minh-city.md) | 9 |
| 9 | [Xi'an Jiaotong University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/xi-an-jiaotong-university.md) | 9 |
| 10 | [Korea University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/korea-university.md) | 8 |

*Countries with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Country | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | China | 237 |
| 2 | United Kingdom | 120 |
| 3 | India | 99 |
| 4 | United States | 81 |
| 5 | Italy | 76 |
| 6 | Spain | 75 |
| 7 | Australia | 64 |
| 8 | France | 56 |
| 9 | Turkey | 52 |
| 10 | Pakistan | 46 |

*Keywords with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [sustainable development](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/sustainable-development.md) | 60 |
| 2 | [CO2 emissions](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/co2-emissions.md) | 56 |
| 3 | [environmental sustainability](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/environmental-sustainability.md) | 56 |
| 4 | [economic growth](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/economic-growth.md) | 53 |
| 5 | [China](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/china.md) | 48 |
| 6 | [corporate social responsibility](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/corporate-social-responsibility.md) | 37 |
| 7 | [green finance](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/green-finance.md) | 36 |
| 8 | [artificial intelligence](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/artificial-intelligence.md) | 35 |
| 9 | [green innovation](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/green-innovation.md) | 32 |

## Most-cited papers

*Most-cited papers since 2017*

| # | Citations | Per month | Title | Journal | Published | Authors |
|---:|---:|---:|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,812 | 18.5 | [Three frames for innovation policy: R&D, systems of innovation and transformative change](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2018.08.011) | [Research Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/research-policy.md) | 2018-08-31 | Johan Schot, W. Edward Steinmueller |
| 2 | 1,428 | 18.3 | [Industry 4.0 technologies assessment: A sustainability perspective](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpe.2020.107776) | [International Journal of Production Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-journal-of-production-economics.md) | 2020-05-06 | Chunguang April Bai, Patrick Dallasega, Guido Orzes et al. |
| 3 | 1,102 | 14.9 | [Artificial intelligence and business models in the sustainable development goals perspective: A systematic literature review](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2020.08.019) | [Journal of Business Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-business-research.md) | 2020-09-11 | Assunta Di Vaio, Rosa Palladino, Rohail Hassan et al. |
| 4 | 849 | 9.1 | [Smart cities: Advances in research—An information systems perspective](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2019.01.004) | [International Journal of Information Management](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-journal-of-information-management.md) | 2019-01-15 | Elvira Ismagilova, Laurie Hughes, Yogesh Kumar Dwivedi et al. |
| 5 | 753 | 9.0 | [Artificial intelligence and sustainable development](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijme.2019.100330) | [The International Journal of Management Education](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/the-international-journal-of-management-education.md) | 2019-11-03 | Margaret A. Goralski, Tay Keong Tan |

## Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). Papers on “Sustainable Development Goals”. Journal and Conference Research Rankings. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/sustainable-development-goals

```bibtex
@misc{scholar4ai-keywords-sustainable-development-goals,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {Papers on “Sustainable Development Goals”},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/sustainable-development-goals}},
  urldate = {2026-11-03},
  note = {Journal and Conference Research Rankings; data from OpenAlex (CC0); licensed CC BY-NC 4.0}
}
```

License: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).