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Read UCL's SDGs Report 2022–23 methodology on the extent of activity across the university that is helping to address the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
2022–23 is the third academic year that UCL has reported on the extent of SDGs-related activity across the university.
We are aware some of our measures could be improved and that some of the organisations who supply the data we use are also continually refining their methodologies: we set out some of these caveats to our methodologies below. We will continue to improve our measurement of SDGs-related activity by learning from others in the sector and beyond. In addition to the extent of activity, going forwards we will also explore how we can measure the impact of SDGs-related activity.
SDGs-related research activity at UCL
Research publications
Like last year, to broaden our search for SDGs-related research, we mapped UCL research activity related to each SDG by combining the publications found in Elsevier’s Scopus database (using keyword searches) and in Clarivate’s Web of Science database (as categorised by their InCites tool). To be included, a paper had to be present in the Scopus or Web of Science databases, with any duplicates removed from the total. We then attributed each paper to UCL faculties by matching to UCL’s internal publications database by DOIs.
A paper was counted once per faculty (even if it had multiple authors within a faculty), but was counted in more than one faculty if it had co-authors in multiple faculties. It could be counted in more than one SDG if it is given multiple SDG classifications by Scopus and InCites.
Figures 1 (page 7) and 2 (page 12) show the number of SDGs-related publications by UCL faculty and by SDG.
Policy citations
Policy citations were sourced from Overton, an index of policy documents, guidelines, think tank publications and working papers, which collects data from more than 1,000 sources worldwide.
SDGs-related teaching activity at UCL
For the third year, we classified the descriptions of the 6,343 taught modules in UCL’s online module catalogue by SDG using OSDG, a multilingual open-access tool jointly developed by the UN Development Programme SDG AI Lab and research and policy analysis centre PPMI.
Combining several existing sets of SDG categories and augmenting them with additional keywords, OSDG compiled a set of SDG-relevant terminology. The list of original sources is available on OSDG’s website.
OSDG continues to improve its methodology, so the results should be more accurate than in previous years. A team in UCL Computer Science is also developing an AI tool to map its modules in-house.
The methodology relies on module leads using SDG keywords in their description, which many may not have done – they were unaware their description would be mapped – so the number identified is likely to be an underestimate.
Similarly, longer module descriptions have higher chances of being identified as relevant to an SDG simply because they tend to use a wider vocabulary. Figures 3 (page19) and 4 (page 21) show the numbers of SDG-related modules by UCL faculty and by SDG.
Student extra-curricular activity addressing the SDGs
For the second year, we mapped how many of our students were engaged in activity outside of their course which was contributing to the SDGs. We surveyed student societies asking them to state which of the SDGs their activity was supporting. For those societies that didn’t respond, the UCL SDGs Initiative made that judgement on their behalf, based on information provided by the societies.
The Students’ Union UCL Volunteering Service did the same for the student-led volunteering projects. We used the number of students who were members of those societies and projects that were judged to be supporting an SDG as an indicator of the extent of student involvement in each Goal.
The figures rely on the subjective judgement of staff and students at UCL. The numbers also reflect a particular moment in the year, while membership numbers of societies and projects fluctuate during the academic year. There is no way of knowing how active participants in societies and volunteering projects are.
Figures 5 (page 23) and 6 (page 26) show the numbers of students involved in addressing the SDGs through their student societies and volunteering projects.
External Partnerships activity addressing the SDGs
Working with the UCL Office of the Vice-President (Advancement), we measured solicited philanthropic income received by UCL in support of activity relating to specific SDGs (see Figure 7, page 34). OVPA assigned each gift to one ‘lead’ SDG to avoid duplication and double counting.
Similarly, we also mapped the extent to which two types of external partnerships were supporting the SDGs. With UCL Innovation & Enterprise we measured how many of the student startups supported by the UCL Entrepreneurship Hub were addressing each of the SDGs (see Figure 8, page 36). Each startup was asked to identify which (if any) of the SDGs they thought they were addressing.
View the UCL Sustainable Development Goals Initiative Report 2022-2023
