A comparison of different methods of identifying publications related to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals: Case Study of SDG 13: Climate Action

TL;DR

This study compares four different methods for identifying research publications related to UN SDG 13, revealing significant differences in results and emphasizing the importance of method selection based on interpretation and search strategies.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of four publication identification methods for SDG 13, highlighting their differences and implications for research assessment.

Findings

Methods produced comparable publication counts

Little overlap between methods' results

Differences linked to search strategies and interpretation

Abstract

As sustainability becomes an increasing priority throughout global society, academic and research institutions are assessed on their contribution to relevant research publications. This study compares four methods of identifying research publications related to United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 13: climate action. The four methods, Elsevier, STRINGS, SIRIS, and Dimensions have each developed search strings with the help of subject matter experts which are then enhanced through distinct methods to produce a final set of publications. Our analysis showed that the methods produced comparable quantities of publications but with little overlap between them. We visualised some difference in topic focus between the methods and drew links with the search strategies used. Differences between publications retrieved are likely to come from subjective interpretation of the goals, keyword selection, operationalising search strategies, AI enhancements, and selection of bibliographic database. Each of the elements warrants deeper investigation to understand their role in identifying SDG-related research. Before choosing any method to assess the research contribution to SDGs, end users of SDG data should carefully consider their interpretation of the goal and determine which of the available methods produces the closest dataset. Meanwhile data providers might customise their methods for varying interpretations of the SDGs.