---
title: "SDG 4 Quality education: research papers"
description: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), SDG 4 (Quality education) was addressed by 14,576 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in higher education and research (6,638), economics (3,148) and management (2,035). It is #9 of the 17 goals by papers from 2023 to 2025 (5,427)."
url: https://scholar4ai.com/sdgs/4-quality-education
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/sdgs/4-quality-education.md
license: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)
share_text: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), SDG 4 (Quality education) was addressed by 14,576 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in higher education and research (6,638), economics (3,148) and management (2,035). (as of 2026-10-31)"
data_url: https://scholar4ai.com/data/rankings.json
updated: 2026-10-31T17:45:59+09:00
window: 2026-10-02 to 2026-10-31
source: OpenAlex (CC0)
---

# SDG 4: Quality education

Papers in the tracked journals on UN Sustainable Development Goal 4, Quality education. OpenAlex assigns a paper to each UN Sustainable Development Goal that its classifier scores above 0.4 from the paper's text; a paper can belong to several goals or to none.

All 17 goals: https://scholar4ai.com/rankings/sdgs.md

## Key findings

- From 2017 to 2026 (so far), SDG 4 (Quality education) was addressed by 14,576 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in higher education and research (6,638), economics (3,148) and management (2,035).
- It is #9 of the 17 goals by papers from 2023 to 2025 (5,427).
- 2,075 of them were published in 2025, against 1,081 in 2017.
- Since 2023, the institutions with the most of these papers were University of Hong Kong (98), Education University of Hong Kong (96) and IZA - Institute of Labor Economics (86).
- The journals publishing most of them were International Journal of Educational Development (678), The International Journal of Management Education (664) and Higher Education (598).
- The most-cited of them is “Systematic review of research on artificial intelligence applications in higher education – where are the educators?” (International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, 2019), with 7,197 citations.

## Papers per year

*Papers per publication year and category*

| Category | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 (so far) |
|---|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|
| [Higher Education and Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/higher-education-and-research.md) | 470 | 477 | 509 | 540 | 671 | 662 | 638 | 856 | 978 | 837 |
| [Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/economics.md) | 293 | 304 | 257 | 284 | 317 | 325 | 370 | 348 | 375 | 275 |
| [Management](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/management.md) | 136 | 120 | 127 | 144 | 189 | 215 | 222 | 275 | 296 | 311 |
| [AI](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/ai.md) | 33 | 28 | 30 | 58 | 65 | 120 | 123 | 154 | 201 | 220 |
| [Tourism and Hospitality](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/tourism-and-hospitality.md) | 49 | 35 | 45 | 50 | 54 | 33 | 48 | 52 | 48 | 26 |
| [Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/operations-research.md) | 20 | 17 | 25 | 34 | 28 | 28 | 41 | 34 | 27 | 34 |
| [Information Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/information-systems.md) | 39 | 32 | 25 | 20 | 20 | 18 | 23 | 21 | 38 | 34 |
| [Accounting](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/accounting.md) | 16 | 25 | 18 | 27 | 25 | 19 | 23 | 30 | 27 | 46 |
| [Health Economics and Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/health-economics-and-policy.md) | 11 | 21 | 14 | 17 | 28 | 14 | 13 | 18 | 28 | 21 |
| [Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/finance.md) | 5 | 12 | 11 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 13 | 23 | 44 | 31 |
| [Marketing](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/marketing.md) | 9 | 5 | 10 | 11 | 10 | 7 | 9 | 15 | 10 | 6 |
| [Statistics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/statistics.md) | 0 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 7 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 2 |
| All categories | 1,081 | 1,078 | 1,073 | 1,195 | 1,421 | 1,458 | 1,525 | 1,827 | 2,075 | 1,843 |

## Where the papers come from

*Journals with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Journal | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [International Journal of Educational Development](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-journal-of-educational-development.md) | 678 |
| 2 | [The International Journal of Management Education](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/the-international-journal-of-management-education.md) | 664 |
| 3 | [Higher Education](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/higher-education.md) | 598 |
| 4 | [Computers and Education Artificial Intelligence](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/computers-and-education-artificial-intelligence.md) | 547 |
| 5 | [Studies In Educational Evaluation](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/studies-in-educational-evaluation.md) | 350 |
| 6 | [Economics of Education Review](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/economics-of-education-review.md) | 286 |
| 7 | [Innovative Higher Education](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/innovative-higher-education.md) | 263 |
| 8 | [International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-journal-of-educational-technology-in-higher-education.md) | 263 |
| 9 | [Research in Higher Education](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/research-in-higher-education.md) | 167 |
| 10 | [Expert Systems with Applications](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/expert-systems-with-applications.md) | 164 |

*Institutions with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Institution | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | University of Hong Kong | 98 |
| 2 | Education University of Hong Kong | 96 |
| 3 | IZA - Institute of Labor Economics | 86 |
| 4 | Beijing Normal University | 78 |
| 5 | Central China Normal University | 78 |
| 6 | Monash University | 73 |
| 7 | [Peking University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/peking-university.md) | 72 |
| 8 | [Zhejiang University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/zhejiang-university.md) | 66 |
| 9 | Chinese University of Hong Kong | 61 |
| 10 | University College London | 60 |

*Countries with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Country | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | United States | 1,749 |
| 2 | China | 1,437 |
| 3 | United Kingdom | 709 |
| 4 | Australia | 456 |
| 5 | Germany | 416 |
| 6 | Spain | 349 |
| 7 | Hong Kong | 305 |
| 8 | Italy | 265 |
| 9 | Canada | 239 |
| 10 | India | 236 |

*Keywords with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | academic performance | 471 |
| 2 | higher education | 458 |
| 3 | university students | 418 |
| 4 | gender differences | 309 |
| 5 | [COVID-19 pandemic](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/covid-19-pandemic.md) | 291 |
| 6 | student engagement | 291 |
| 7 | entrepreneurship education | 279 |
| 8 | [generative AI](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/generative-ai.md) | 275 |
| 9 | online learning | 246 |
| 10 | ChatGPT | 230 |

## Most-cited papers

*Most-cited papers since 2017*

| # | Citations | Per month | Title | Journal | Published | Authors |
|---:|---:|---:|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 7,197 | 85.5 | [Systematic review of research on artificial intelligence applications in higher education – where are the educators?](https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-019-0171-0) | [International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-journal-of-educational-technology-in-higher-education.md) | 2019-10-27 | Olaf Zawacki‐Richter, Victoria I. Marín, Melissa Bond et al. |
| 2 | 2,498 | 63.2 | [Students’ voices on generative AI: perceptions, benefits, and challenges in higher education](https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-023-00411-8) | [International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-journal-of-educational-technology-in-higher-education.md) | 2023-07-16 | Cecilia Ka Yuk Chan, Wenjie Hu |
| 3 | 2,186 | 31.3 | [Conceptualizing AI literacy: An exploratory review](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.caeai.2021.100041) | [Computers and Education Artificial Intelligence](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/computers-and-education-artificial-intelligence.md) | 2021-01-01 | Davy Tsz Kit Ng, Jac Ka Lok Leung, Samuel Kai Wah Chu et al. |
| 4 | 1,989 | 47.0 | [Artificial intelligence in higher education: the state of the field](https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-023-00392-8) | [International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-journal-of-educational-technology-in-higher-education.md) | 2023-04-23 | Helen Crompton, Diane Burke |
| 5 | 1,569 | 39.4 | [A comprehensive AI policy education framework for university teaching and learning](https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-023-00408-3) | [International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-journal-of-educational-technology-in-higher-education.md) | 2023-07-06 | Cecilia Ka Yuk Chan |
| 6 | 1,452 | 12.5 | [Gamifying education: what is known, what is believed and what remains uncertain: a critical review](https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-017-0042-5) | [International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-journal-of-educational-technology-in-higher-education.md) | 2017-02-20 | Christo Dichev, Darina Dicheva |
| 7 | 1,433 | 17.5 | [Vision, challenges, roles and research issues of Artificial Intelligence in Education](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.caeai.2020.100001) | [Computers and Education Artificial Intelligence](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/computers-and-education-artificial-intelligence.md) | 2020-01-01 | Gwo‐Jen Hwang, Haoran Xie, Benjamin Wan-Sang Wah et al. |
| 8 | 1,258 | 28.6 | [Generative AI and the future of education: Ragnarök or reformation? A paradoxical perspective from management educators](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijme.2023.100790) | [The International Journal of Management Education](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/the-international-journal-of-management-education.md) | 2023-02-28 | Weng Marc Lim, Asanka N. Gunasekara, Jessica Leigh Pallant et al. |
| 9 | 1,252 | 11.8 | [Blended learning: the new normal and emerging technologies](https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-017-0087-5) | [International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-journal-of-educational-technology-in-higher-education.md) | 2018-01-09 | Charles D. Dziuban, Charles R. Graham, Patsy D. Moskal et al. |
| 10 | 1,178 | 25.4 | [Systematic literature review on opportunities, challenges, and future research recommendations of artificial intelligence in education](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.caeai.2022.100118) | [Computers and Education Artificial Intelligence](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/computers-and-education-artificial-intelligence.md) | 2022-12-19 | Thomas K.F. Chiu, Qi Xia, Xinyan Zhou et al. |

## Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). SDG 4: Quality education. Journal Research Rankings. Retrieved October 31, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/sdgs/4-quality-education

```bibtex
@misc{scholar4ai-sdgs-4-quality-education,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {SDG 4: Quality education},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/sdgs/4-quality-education}},
  urldate = {2026-10-31},
  note = {Journal 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/).