Accelerating action towards the Sustainable Development Goals

Author: Nicola Jones

‘Giving up cannot be an option’ says a Nature comment on the future of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Yet as international dignitaries and civil society representatives arrive in New York for the annual series of UN meetings, they do so amid reports that only 17% of SDG targets are on track to be met by the 2030 deadline and the midpoint of the goals is now well behind us. So what can be done? The UN Chief has invited world leaders to attend the Summit of the Future later this month; a conference that seeks to reinvigorate global actions towards the goals, focusing on ‘how’ to deliver targets instead of ‘why’, and creating a ‘Pact for the Future’ in order to keep sustainable development at the forefront of national and international agendas. 

There’s immense value to be had in pausing to evaluate efforts towards the goals, with a view to redoubling them and ensuring their efficacy. Especially at this time of year when the goals are front of mind. We remain committed to the SDGs at Springer Nature. They are the most visible and concrete way to highlight where governments, businesses and civil society can collectively address urgent global challenges with local, evidence-based solutions. We believe the goals provide a framework for new research, partnerships and collaborations that can drive better outcomes for people and the planet. 

The biggest impact we can have on the goals is through the content we publish. We want to provide a home for SDG-related knowledge, facilitating the discovery, sharing, use and reuse of research that has true impact towards a sustainable future. Since their ratification in 2015, we’ve published over 940,000 articles and chapters related to the goals, and over half of our SDG related articles are open access, meaning they can be read and shared easily by decision makers and others who need them to take action. In 2023, half of the articles from a fifth of our journals were related to the goals. Recently we have highlighted each of these journals with an SDG “badge” to show our communities - both within and especially outside academia - the journals that are directly facilitating increased knowledge creation and exchange around the goals. We have also updated a dedicated hub to showcase our SDG related Open Access (OA) books. This is all part of our commitment as signatories of the UN Publishers Compact: to act as champions of the SDGs, publishing books and journals that will help inform, develop, and inspire action in that direction.

As a publishing company of several international media brands, we have a role to play in raising awareness of the goals themselves and mobilising action towards them. We’ve joined forces with others to leverage the access we have to global audiences and to achieve more than the sum of our parts. For example, Scientific American is part of the UN Media Compact and Springer Nature, a member of the UN Women Media Compact and the SDG Publishers Compact. We look forward to working with our fellow members and UN counterparts at the SDG Media Zone during this important time, to support the UN’s call for a recommitment to the goals. 

Research must be considered at the Summit of the Future as one of the key ways to galvanise efforts towards achieving the goals. Academic and editorial communities facilitate knowledge exchange, encourage global dialogue and identify solutions to worldwide issues – all essential components for realising the SDGs. Behind every piece of research we publish is a team of talented, dedicated editors, without whom world-changing research discoveries would remain undiscovered. Our role is to ensure they know the impact they can have, and that the world sees the effects of their work. 

We make sure to convene the experts we work with from science, research, policy and practice at various events, to show just how impactful research can be. Take our Latin America and the Caribbean Sustainable Development Summit taking place at the moment, and the forthcoming global Breaking Barriers Breaking Barriers for Gender and Health Equity Through Research event for example - both the latest editions of successful conferences producing practical, tangible actions. Our events highlight and respond to areas that need more insight too. Like Science for a Sustainable Future 2024, our annual event series hosted in partnership with the Sustainable Development Solutions Network. This year’s events resulted in a policy briefing on metrics for SDG progress ‘Beyond GDP’ - one of 11 key topics that needs attention at the Summit of the Future as identified by the UN Chief. 

So as world leaders prepare to gather together and commit to accelerate the goals, we are far from giving up. Instead we are looking for new ways to highlight the insights the world needs to make progress, to share our content with policymakers, and to amplify the excellent research community behind the findings we publish.