Bru-Iscte is very involved in Iscte’s efforts to promote and contribute to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Our researchers Catarina Roseta Palma (Economics research group) and Ana Margarida Simaens (Accounting, Marketing & Management research group) are members of the Coordination Team of the Sustainability@ISCTE-IUL project, being respectively Director and Coordinator for the Prosperity Dimension.
Fully endorsing the Iscte’s Sustainability Policy for Research, BRU-Iscte collaborated with the Planning, Sustainability and Quality Office to collect verifiable information relating to the impact of our research outputs towards the SDGs for the first edition of THE University Impact Rankings. This new ranking from the Times Higher Education (THE) aims to assess Higher Education Institutions’ performance in delivering the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
In addition, taking advantage of the new possibilities made available by Iscte’s information systems, we have encouraged our researchers to identify the relevant SDGs (up to 3 goals per contribution) to each of their research outputs over the past 5 years.
As of November 2019, BRU-IUL researchers have listed 470 publications and 11 projects as contributing to specific Sustainable Development Goals. Of these, we assessed the declared research outputs are mostly aligned with:
· SDG 8 – Decent Work and Economic Growth with 193 publications and 9 projects
· SDG 9 – Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure with 134 publications and 1 project
· SDG 12 – Responsible Consumption and Production with 125 publications, and 1 project
· SDG 3 – Good Health and Well-being with 64 publications and 5 projects
· SDG 4 – Quality Education, which emerged in 2019 as one of the main SDGs to which BRU’s research is most committed to, with 61 publications
Multidisciplinarity & Interdisciplinarity of the 5 BRU-Iscte Research Groups in their efforts to deliver the SDGs
In the next years BRU-Iscte is committed to build on its interdisciplinary potential to explore new and leverage existing international networks, as well as to further engage in collaborative projects. BRU-Iscte is invested in diversifying its funding sources, namely by increasing the number of project proposal applications, in particular to European funding schemes, and by developing innovative partnerships with industries. Furthermore, the Unit wants to boost its degree of internationalisation, especially by raising the attractiveness of its doctoral programmes. Finally, BRU-Iscte wants to enhance its contribution to social impact, by providing its researchers with tools to consider and assess the impact of their research activities, its potential to societal and public policy change, as well as encouraging them to continue measuring their contribution to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
