Scientific evidence on the political impact of the Sustainable Development Goals

Frank Biermann; Thomas Hickmann; Carole Anne Sénit; Marianne Beisheim; Steven Bernstein; Pamela Chasek; Leonie Grob; Rakhyun E. Kim; Louis J. Kotzé; Måns Nilsson; Andrea Ordóñez Llanos; Chukwumerije Okereke; Prajal Pradhan; Rob Raven; Yixian Sun; Marjanneke J. Vijge; Detlef van Vuuren; Birka Wicke

doi:10.1038/s41893-022-00909-5

Scientific evidence on the political impact of the Sustainable Development Goals

Frank Biermann^*, Thomas Hickmann^*, Carole Anne Sénit^*, Marianne Beisheim, Steven Bernstein, Pamela Chasek, Leonie Grob, Rakhyun E. Kim, Louis J. Kotzé, Måns Nilsson, Andrea Ordóñez Llanos, Chukwumerije Okereke, Prajal Pradhan, Rob Raven, Yixian Sun, Marjanneke J. Vijge, Detlef van Vuuren, Birka Wicke

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

In 2015, the United Nations agreed on 17 Sustainable Development Goals as the central normative framework for sustainable development worldwide. The effectiveness of governing by such broad global goals, however, remains uncertain, and we lack comprehensive meta-studies that assess the political impact of the goals across countries and globally. We present here condensed evidence from an analysis of over 3,000 scientific studies on the Sustainable Development Goals published between 2016 and April 2021. Our findings suggests that the goals have had some political impact on institutions and policies, from local to global governance. This impact has been largely discursive, affecting the way actors understand and communicate about sustainable development. More profound normative and institutional impact, from legislative action to changing resource allocation, remains rare. We conclude that the scientific evidence suggests only limited transformative political impact of the Sustainable Development Goals thus far.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	795-800
Number of pages	6
Journal	Nature Sustainability
Volume	5
Issue number	9
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-022-00909-5
Publication status	Published - Sept 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This Article synthesizes the core findings of the ‘SDG Impact Assessment’, a larger study that involved 61 scholars from all over the world. The complete assessment with author and reference lists and about 100,000 words of analysis will be published by Cambridge University Press in 2022 (The Political Impact of the Sustainable Development Goals: Transforming Governance through Global Goals? , edited by F. Biermann, T. Hickmann and C.A. Sénit). F.B., L.G., T.H. and C.A.S. received funding from the European Research Council for the project GlobalGoals (grant no. 788001, advanced grant F.B.). P.P. received funding from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) for the BIOCLIMAPATHS project (grant no. 01LS1906A) under Axis-ERANET. D.v.V. received funding from the European Research Council under grant no. 819566 (PICASSO).

Funding Information:
Y.Y. and H. Leng acknowledge the financial support from DARPA through award number HR00111920001. L.G. and Y.W. acknowledge the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE). X.L. acknowledges the support of the National Science Foundation through the award number DMR-1936432. H. Liu acknowledges the financial support from Army Research Office through award number W911NF1620010. S.P. acknowledges the support of the National Science Foundation through CREST Center for Renewable Energy and Advanced Materials (CREAM) award number HRD 1547771.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s).

Funding

This Article synthesizes the core findings of the ‘SDG Impact Assessment’, a larger study that involved 61 scholars from all over the world. The complete assessment with author and reference lists and about 100,000 words of analysis will be published by Cambridge University Press in 2022 (The Political Impact of the Sustainable Development Goals: Transforming Governance through Global Goals? , edited by F. Biermann, T. Hickmann and C.A. Sénit). F.B., L.G., T.H. and C.A.S. received funding from the European Research Council for the project GlobalGoals (grant no. 788001, advanced grant F.B.). P.P. received funding from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) for the BIOCLIMAPATHS project (grant no. 01LS1906A) under Axis-ERANET. D.v.V. received funding from the European Research Council under grant no. 819566 (PICASSO). Y.Y. and H. Leng acknowledge the financial support from DARPA through award number HR00111920001. L.G. and Y.W. acknowledge the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE). X.L. acknowledges the support of the National Science Foundation through the award number DMR-1936432. H. Liu acknowledges the financial support from Army Research Office through award number W911NF1620010. S.P. acknowledges the support of the National Science Foundation through CREST Center for Renewable Energy and Advanced Materials (CREAM) award number HRD 1547771.

Keywords

government
interdisciplinary studies
politics

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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Biermann, F., Hickmann, T., Sénit, C. A., Beisheim, M., Bernstein, S., Chasek, P., Grob, L., Kim, R. E., Kotzé, L. J., Nilsson, M., Ordóñez Llanos, A., Okereke, C., Pradhan, P., Raven, R., Sun, Y., Vijge, M. J., van Vuuren, D., & Wicke, B. (2022). Scientific evidence on the political impact of the Sustainable Development Goals. Nature Sustainability, 5(9), 795-800. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-022-00909-5

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title = "Scientific evidence on the political impact of the Sustainable Development Goals",

abstract = "In 2015, the United Nations agreed on 17 Sustainable Development Goals as the central normative framework for sustainable development worldwide. The effectiveness of governing by such broad global goals, however, remains uncertain, and we lack comprehensive meta-studies that assess the political impact of the goals across countries and globally. We present here condensed evidence from an analysis of over 3,000 scientific studies on the Sustainable Development Goals published between 2016 and April 2021. Our findings suggests that the goals have had some political impact on institutions and policies, from local to global governance. This impact has been largely discursive, affecting the way actors understand and communicate about sustainable development. More profound normative and institutional impact, from legislative action to changing resource allocation, remains rare. We conclude that the scientific evidence suggests only limited transformative political impact of the Sustainable Development Goals thus far.",

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author = "Frank Biermann and Thomas Hickmann and S{\'e}nit, {Carole Anne} and Marianne Beisheim and Steven Bernstein and Pamela Chasek and Leonie Grob and Kim, {Rakhyun E.} and Kotz{\'e}, {Louis J.} and M{\aa}ns Nilsson and {Ord{\'o}{\~n}ez Llanos}, Andrea and Chukwumerije Okereke and Prajal Pradhan and Rob Raven and Yixian Sun and Vijge, {Marjanneke J.} and {van Vuuren}, Detlef and Birka Wicke",

note = "Funding Information: This Article synthesizes the core findings of the {\textquoteleft}SDG Impact Assessment{\textquoteright}, a larger study that involved 61 scholars from all over the world. The complete assessment with author and reference lists and about 100,000 words of analysis will be published by Cambridge University Press in 2022 (The Political Impact of the Sustainable Development Goals: Transforming Governance through Global Goals? , edited by F. Biermann, T. Hickmann and C.A. S{\'e}nit). F.B., L.G., T.H. and C.A.S. received funding from the European Research Council for the project GlobalGoals (grant no. 788001, advanced grant F.B.). P.P. received funding from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) for the BIOCLIMAPATHS project (grant no. 01LS1906A) under Axis-ERANET. D.v.V. received funding from the European Research Council under grant no. 819566 (PICASSO). Funding Information: Y.Y. and H. Leng acknowledge the financial support from DARPA through award number HR00111920001. L.G. and Y.W. acknowledge the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE). X.L. acknowledges the support of the National Science Foundation through the award number DMR-1936432. H. Liu acknowledges the financial support from Army Research Office through award number W911NF1620010. S.P. acknowledges the support of the National Science Foundation through CREST Center for Renewable Energy and Advanced Materials (CREAM) award number HRD 1547771. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2022, The Author(s).",

year = "2022",

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doi = "10.1038/s41893-022-00909-5",

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Biermann, F, Hickmann, T, Sénit, CA, Beisheim, M, Bernstein, S, Chasek, P, Grob, L, Kim, RE, Kotzé, LJ, Nilsson, M, Ordóñez Llanos, A, Okereke, C, Pradhan, P, Raven, R, Sun, Y, Vijge, MJ , van Vuuren, D & Wicke, B 2022, 'Scientific evidence on the political impact of the Sustainable Development Goals', Nature Sustainability, vol. 5, no. 9, pp. 795-800. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-022-00909-5

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AU - Hickmann, Thomas

AU - Sénit, Carole Anne

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AU - Grob, Leonie

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AU - Ordóñez Llanos, Andrea

AU - Okereke, Chukwumerije

AU - Pradhan, Prajal

AU - Raven, Rob

AU - Sun, Yixian

AU - Vijge, Marjanneke J.

AU - van Vuuren, Detlef

AU - Wicke, Birka

N1 - Funding Information: This Article synthesizes the core findings of the ‘SDG Impact Assessment’, a larger study that involved 61 scholars from all over the world. The complete assessment with author and reference lists and about 100,000 words of analysis will be published by Cambridge University Press in 2022 (The Political Impact of the Sustainable Development Goals: Transforming Governance through Global Goals? , edited by F. Biermann, T. Hickmann and C.A. Sénit). F.B., L.G., T.H. and C.A.S. received funding from the European Research Council for the project GlobalGoals (grant no. 788001, advanced grant F.B.). P.P. received funding from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) for the BIOCLIMAPATHS project (grant no. 01LS1906A) under Axis-ERANET. D.v.V. received funding from the European Research Council under grant no. 819566 (PICASSO). Funding Information: Y.Y. and H. Leng acknowledge the financial support from DARPA through award number HR00111920001. L.G. and Y.W. acknowledge the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE). X.L. acknowledges the support of the National Science Foundation through the award number DMR-1936432. H. Liu acknowledges the financial support from Army Research Office through award number W911NF1620010. S.P. acknowledges the support of the National Science Foundation through CREST Center for Renewable Energy and Advanced Materials (CREAM) award number HRD 1547771. Publisher Copyright: © 2022, The Author(s).

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N2 - In 2015, the United Nations agreed on 17 Sustainable Development Goals as the central normative framework for sustainable development worldwide. The effectiveness of governing by such broad global goals, however, remains uncertain, and we lack comprehensive meta-studies that assess the political impact of the goals across countries and globally. We present here condensed evidence from an analysis of over 3,000 scientific studies on the Sustainable Development Goals published between 2016 and April 2021. Our findings suggests that the goals have had some political impact on institutions and policies, from local to global governance. This impact has been largely discursive, affecting the way actors understand and communicate about sustainable development. More profound normative and institutional impact, from legislative action to changing resource allocation, remains rare. We conclude that the scientific evidence suggests only limited transformative political impact of the Sustainable Development Goals thus far.

AB - In 2015, the United Nations agreed on 17 Sustainable Development Goals as the central normative framework for sustainable development worldwide. The effectiveness of governing by such broad global goals, however, remains uncertain, and we lack comprehensive meta-studies that assess the political impact of the goals across countries and globally. We present here condensed evidence from an analysis of over 3,000 scientific studies on the Sustainable Development Goals published between 2016 and April 2021. Our findings suggests that the goals have had some political impact on institutions and policies, from local to global governance. This impact has been largely discursive, affecting the way actors understand and communicate about sustainable development. More profound normative and institutional impact, from legislative action to changing resource allocation, remains rare. We conclude that the scientific evidence suggests only limited transformative political impact of the Sustainable Development Goals thus far.

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KW - interdisciplinary studies

KW - politics

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ER -

Scientific evidence on the political impact of the Sustainable Development Goals

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Funding

Keywords

UN SDGs

Access to Document

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