Elsevier 2023 SDG mapping
Tips
How to read a Scopus query
The Scopus queries presented in this view correspond to what is known on scopus.com as advanced search queries. Advanced searches allow a query creator to create complex and robust queries using field codes, Boolean operators, or proximity operators. We detail each of these elements below.
Field codes
A typical publication's Scopus record contains a myriad of information about it. To make this information easily usable, this information is structured and parsed apart in different fields, each containing a given type of information. For example, the title field contains a publication's title, and the publication year field informs us about when a given publication was first made public.
Field codes are there to indicate which field(s) we would like to source information from when conducting a given search. To avoid searches becoming overly long, they are usually shortened words such as ABS, which stands for "Abstract". The most commonly-used field codes used by our query-building team are:
- TITLE-ABS-KEY
Searches through the Title, Abstract, and all Keywords - TITLE-ABS
Searches only through the Title and Abstract - AUTHKEY
Searches only through the Author-defined keywords - SRCTITLE
Searches only through the journal or conference proceedings' titles
To conduct a search in a given field, the syntax is always field-code(search-term).
The field codes used can potentially have a deep impact on a search. For example, searching for "Canada" in field AFFILCOUNTRY would return publications where at least one author was affiliated with a Canadian institution, while the same search conducted in field TITLE-ABS-KEY would return articles that concern Canada.
Boolean operators
In most cases, conducting a Scopus search using a single field code or a single term is not sufficient to obtain a robust set of results. To remedy this, Scopus searches make use of boolean operators to allow for the combination of different terms or query parts. The allowed operators are
- OR
At least one of the terms must appear in the specified field, or at least one of the searches must match - AND
Both of the terms must appear in the specified field, or both searches must match - AND NOT
Only the first term must appear in the specified field, or only the first search must match
Boolean operators are applied in the order they were listed above. Therefore, KEY(mouse AND NOT cat OR dog) is interpreted as KEY((mouse) AND NOT (cat OR dog)).
Proximity operators
In some instances, a certain word is deemed relevant to a topic only if it is close to another word in the text, or certain phrasings might space out two related words defining a topic, which we could want to be tolerant to. For example, the sentence "publishing scholarly journals" is relevant to the topic of "scholarly publishing", but searching for "scholarly publishing" alone would not capture an article that used this expression.
Using proximity searches enable building queries that are tolerant to such things. Two proximity search operators are available in Scopus:
- W/n
Both terms must be within n words of each other, but not in any particular order - PRE/n
Both terms must be within n words of each other, in the order they are listed in
For example, the search TITLE-ABS-KEY("journal" W/2 "publishing") would capture the sentence from the example above, but TITLE-ABS-KEY("journal" PRE/2 "publishing") would not, since the words are not in the same order.
Introduction
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) challenge the global community to build a world where no one is left behind.
Since 2018, Elsevier has generated SDG search queries to help researchers and institutions track and demonstrate progress toward the SDG targets. In the past 3 years, these queries, along with the university’s own data and evidence supporting progress and contributions to the particular SDG outside of research-based metrics, are used for the THE Impact Rankings.
Method
For 2025, the SDGs use the exact same search query and ML algorithm as the Elsevier 2023 SDG mappings, with only minor modifications coming from changes to the search engine handling the SDG queries. Because of this, while the vast majority of publications retain their original mapping, the number of publications in each SDG has slightly changed.
All these changes were implemented to streamline how SDG queries are handled. Users should note that running these in Scopus should be done for reference purposes only, as the Scopus search engine behaves slightly differently than the classifier used to formerly tag SDGs to publications. Full details of the 2023 methodology are available on Digital Commons Data.
SDG 17 – Partnerships for the Goals
Query
Below is the full search query used for SDG 17 – Partnerships for the Goals. We’ve broken it down by each query component. Use the + and – buttons to expand or concatenate the different bracket levels.
Subfields of science
In this section, we show how the publication set, captured by the query above, relates to the Science-Metrix classification system.As shown in Figure 1, the publications related to this publication set fall mainly under the subfields of Economics (65,619 publications), Environmental Sciences (43,747 publications) and Energy (43,364 publications). The total share of each subfield included under the publication set are presented upon hovering your cursor over the bars.
Journals
In this section, we show how the publication set, captured by the query above, relates to scholarly journals. Journals are sorted in terms of their total output in the field. The horizontal bars are proportional to the number of publications contributed by the journal to the current publication set. To see the proportion of the total publications in the journal contributing to this publication set or their relevance score, you can hover your cursor over the bars.The articles on this topic are published most frequently in the following journals: Sustainability (Switzerland) (15,378 publications), Journal of Cleaner Production (5,990 publications) and Environmental Science and Pollution Research (2,884 publications).
Keywords
Elsevier’s Scopus database of scientific literature, was used for the table below. The document types included in the data sets are journal articles, reviews, short surveys and conference papers, covering the period 1996–2022. We refer to these documents collectively as “publications” or “papers”.In order to help better illustrate the content of this set of publications, indicators associated with the keywords most specific to this set (according to a TF-IDF score) are presented below.
| Term | Papers with this term in the publication set | Papers with this term in all of Scopus | Relevance (tf-idf) | Percentage of Scopus |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| the belt and road initiative | 2223 | 2416 | 19.250823 | 92 |
| belt and road initiative | 3345 | 3672 | 19.214145 | 91 |
| belt and road initiative (bri) | 1411 | 1540 | 19.188113 | 92 |
| informal economy | 2539 | 2950 | 19.124461 | 86 |
| road initiative | 3510 | 4098 | 19.086278 | 86 |
| cross-border cooperation | 1164 | 1315 | 19.080556 | 89 |
| the informal economy | 1347 | 1561 | 19.070603 | 86 |
| united nations framework convention on climate change (unfccc) | 993 | 1103 | 19.061906 | 90 |
| the belt and road initiative (bri) | 847 | 916 | 19.049425 | 92 |
| the belt and road | 2540 | 3116 | 19.020477 | 82 |
| development cooperation | 1698 | 2112 | 18.979711 | 80 |
| formal economy | 2621 | 3291 | 18.974495 | 80 |
| border cooperation | 1243 | 1517 | 18.960283 | 82 |
| belt and road | 3798 | 4735 | 18.942731 | 80 |
| anti-money laundering | 982 | 1167 | 18.941046 | 84 |
| money laundering | 2769 | 3560 | 18.925359 | 78 |
| informal employment | 849 | 990 | 18.921832 | 86 |
| the informal sector | 2524 | 3291 | 18.904163 | 77 |
| official development assistance | 1007 | 1248 | 18.876185 | 81 |
| global civil society | 625 | 693 | 18.869153 | 90 |
| fiscal policies | 2381 | 3166 | 18.868991 | 75 |
| shadow economy | 1022 | 1279 | 18.863740 | 80 |
| development assistance | 2911 | 3864 | 18.859026 | 75 |
| monetary policy rule | 859 | 1043 | 18.857223 | 82 |
| tax policies | 1404 | 1841 | 18.856567 | 76 |
| foreign aid | 3532 | 4633 | 18.855307 | 76 |
| tax avoidance | 1742 | 2327 | 18.851005 | 75 |
| unfccc | 2041 | 2742 | 18.849624 | 74 |
| informal sector | 4367 | 5626 | 18.846056 | 78 |
| tax evasion | 2463 | 3320 | 18.841803 | 74 |
| unfcc | 2054 | 2806 | 18.818471 | 73 |
| international cooperation. | 1471 | 1984 | 18.813219 | 74 |
| development aid | 1759 | 2417 | 18.799789 | 73 |
| monetary policies | 1890 | 2620 | 18.788156 | 72 |
| unfc | 2066 | 2883 | 18.778777 | 72 |
| monetary policy. | 2860 | 3984 | 18.767406 | 72 |
| tax policy | 3771 | 5178 | 18.752156 | 73 |
| ppp projects | 1065 | 1433 | 18.749097 | 74 |
| corporate tax | 2543 | 3596 | 18.748580 | 71 |
| monetary policy rules | 568 | 658 | 18.747201 | 86 |
| sustainable development policies | 484 | 533 | 18.737299 | 91 |
| excise tax | 1156 | 1589 | 18.732533 | 73 |
| ppp project | 1257 | 1761 | 18.717278 | 71 |
| tax systems | 952 | 1296 | 18.695951 | 73 |
| monetary policy shock | 1277 | 1829 | 18.681016 | 70 |
| the shadow economy | 617 | 769 | 18.670047 | 80 |
| optimal monetary policy | 772 | 1024 | 18.665965 | 75 |
| tax system | 3877 | 5549 | 18.663590 | 70 |
| sustainable development policy | 445 | 499 | 18.656213 | 89 |
| international developments | 859 | 1177 | 18.650719 | 73 |
| international tax | 1076 | 1552 | 18.630189 | 69 |
| transfer pricing | 889 | 1242 | 18.629212 | 72 |
| monetary policy shocks | 1026 | 1485 | 18.611575 | 69 |
| tax administration | 1088 | 1595 | 18.604535 | 68 |
| value-added tax | 685 | 916 | 18.602309 | 75 |
| official development assistance (oda) | 486 | 587 | 18.591896 | 83 |
| informal sectors | 589 | 769 | 18.570695 | 77 |
| value added tax | 759 | 1062 | 18.569149 | 71 |
| underground economy | 506 | 632 | 18.561396 | 80 |
| formal sector | 4538 | 6729 | 18.551732 | 67 |
| tax law | 1697 | 2678 | 18.542413 | 63 |
| fccc | 2056 | 3269 | 18.534244 | 63 |
| fiscal policy | 7978 | 10774 | 18.525789 | 74 |
| sustainability policies | 504 | 643 | 18.525031 | 78 |
| outward foreign direct investment | 853 | 1257 | 18.524024 | 68 |
| sustainability policy | 447 | 549 | 18.514787 | 81 |
| taylor rule | 923 | 1389 | 18.513476 | 66 |
| department for international development | 461 | 574 | 18.511866 | 80 |
| excise taxes | 577 | 776 | 18.511859 | 74 |
| policy shocks | 1261 | 1990 | 18.505856 | 63 |
| effects of monetary policy | 659 | 926 | 18.502799 | 71 |
| monetary policy transmission | 681 | 972 | 18.491190 | 70 |
| fdi inflow | 1384 | 2231 | 18.482676 | 62 |
| revenue collection | 571 | 783 | 18.474864 | 73 |
| international development | 9431 | 12536 | 18.473171 | 75 |
| multilateral trading system | 505 | 666 | 18.472814 | 76 |
| policy shock | 1572 | 2585 | 18.461155 | 61 |
| cross-border collaboration | 316 | 345 | 18.456896 | 92 |
| carbon tax policy | 324 | 359 | 18.453513 | 90 |
| fdi inflows | 1158 | 1870 | 18.448618 | 62 |
| anti-money laundering (aml) | 320 | 354 | 18.446504 | 90 |
| the sustainable development goals (sdgs) | 1873 | 3123 | 18.445047 | 60 |
| tax policy. | 496 | 662 | 18.443526 | 75 |
| corporate taxation | 531 | 726 | 18.442022 | 73 |
| united states agency for international development | 462 | 604 | 18.435540 | 76 |
| japan international cooperation agency | 401 | 496 | 18.434435 | 81 |
| international development agencies | 372 | 447 | 18.428936 | 83 |
| the sdgs | 2238 | 3760 | 18.428189 | 60 |
| the multilateral trading system | 410 | 514 | 18.427822 | 80 |
| united nations framework convention on climate change | 1337 | 2219 | 18.425372 | 60 |
| policy transmission | 743 | 1129 | 18.422018 | 66 |
| debt sustainability | 534 | 744 | 18.414488 | 72 |
| china’s belt and road initiative | 324 | 370 | 18.407499 | 88 |
| policy sustainability | 476 | 641 | 18.405803 | 74 |
| wto accession | 395 | 495 | 18.404090 | 80 |
| conventional monetary policy | 827 | 1300 | 18.403446 | 64 |
| informal economies | 314 | 354 | 18.403243 | 89 |
| monetary and fiscal policy | 612 | 898 | 18.397603 | 68 |
| multilateral trading | 536 | 757 | 18.394454 | 71 |
| inflation targeting | 1523 | 2598 | 18.391542 | 59 |
| international cooperation | 11046 | 14672 | 18.383491 | 75 |
| unconventional monetary policy | 731 | 1135 | 18.379471 | 64 |
| corporate tax avoidance | 377 | 471 | 18.377633 | 80 |
| monetary and fiscal policies | 504 | 706 | 18.374736 | 71 |
| trade openness | 2349 | 4076 | 18.364069 | 58 |
| formal and informal sector | 394 | 511 | 18.348783 | 77 |
| tax moral | 348 | 428 | 18.346250 | 81 |
| outward foreign direct investment (ofdi) | 415 | 551 | 18.345450 | 75 |
| public-private partnership (ppp) | 788 | 1271 | 18.343068 | 62 |
| monetary policy regime | 375 | 480 | 18.336382 | 78 |
| 2030 agenda | 1706 | 3013 | 18.335854 | 57 |
| inflation target | 1900 | 3390 | 18.319439 | 56 |
| us monetary policy | 416 | 563 | 18.316886 | 74 |
| japan international cooperation agency (jica) | 304 | 357 | 18.316506 | 85 |
| tax morale | 318 | 383 | 18.312407 | 83 |
| debt relief | 515 | 756 | 18.310967 | 68 |
| international development cooperation | 307 | 364 | 18.309527 | 84 |
| agenda for sustainable development | 939 | 1597 | 18.307570 | 59 |
| 2030 agenda for sustainable development | 864 | 1452 | 18.303698 | 60 |
| fiscal and monetary policy | 485 | 703 | 18.298728 | 69 |
| public–private partnership | 962 | 1653 | 18.296382 | 58 |
| national cooperation | 11146 | 15456 | 18.283654 | 72 |
| the 2030 agenda | 1158 | 2060 | 18.277838 | 56 |
| and foreign direct investment | 1477 | 2679 | 18.277383 | 55 |
| national developments | 880 | 1529 | 18.252233 | 58 |
| framework convention on climate change | 1599 | 2967 | 18.242062 | 54 |
| world trade organization (wto) | 1999 | 3723 | 18.238871 | 54 |
| sustainable development goals (sdgs) | 4544 | 7888 | 18.232579 | 58 |
| corporate tax rate | 477 | 719 | 18.226913 | 66 |
| tax compliance | 1027 | 1857 | 18.224073 | 55 |
| fiscal and monetary policies | 408 | 582 | 18.222158 | 70 |
| multilateral trade | 806 | 1403 | 18.221614 | 57 |
| sustainable policies | 438 | 643 | 18.220037 | 68 |
| bri countries | 244 | 271 | 18.219822 | 90 |
| business tax | 525 | 826 | 18.209098 | 64 |
| formal employment | 982 | 1783 | 18.206176 | 55 |
| foreign direct investment (fdi) | 4639 | 8153 | 18.200791 | 57 |
| monetary transmission | 567 | 918 | 18.200549 | 62 |
| agency for international development | 882 | 1584 | 18.196242 | 56 |
| agenda 2030 | 696 | 1201 | 18.183789 | 58 |
| united nations sustainable development goals | 936 | 1716 | 18.177213 | 55 |
| policy rule | 1366 | 2612 | 18.174132 | 52 |
| fdi in china | 221 | 240 | 18.164994 | 92 |
| sovereign default | 459 | 711 | 18.161931 | 65 |
| access to market | 830 | 1507 | 18.159347 | 55 |
| corporate taxes | 354 | 499 | 18.148143 | 71 |
| the sustainable development goals | 4564 | 8262 | 18.146307 | 55 |
| formal and informal sectors | 304 | 400 | 18.144481 | 76 |
| the world trade organization | 2796 | 5394 | 18.140886 | 52 |
| the 2030 agenda for sustainable development | 607 | 1039 | 18.140669 | 58 |
| international taxation | 364 | 522 | 18.140318 | 70 |
| effectiveness of monetary policy | 322 | 437 | 18.139852 | 74 |
| expansionary monetary policy | 330 | 456 | 18.129933 | 72 |
| policy rate | 768 | 1405 | 18.121375 | 55 |
| public–private partnerships | 563 | 965 | 18.104312 | 58 |
| doha round | 493 | 815 | 18.096914 | 60 |
| public-private partnerships | 2600 | 5174 | 18.091956 | 50 |
| value added tax (vat) | 274 | 354 | 18.091802 | 77 |
| china's belt and road initiative | 226 | 262 | 18.090009 | 86 |
| the wto | 3854 | 7401 | 18.079494 | 52 |
| trade liberalisation | 820 | 1559 | 18.077293 | 53 |
| monetary policy decisions | 265 | 340 | 18.075459 | 78 |
| informal job | 214 | 243 | 18.071102 | 88 |
| regional integration | 2490 | 5040 | 18.065121 | 49 |
| access to markets | 572 | 1011 | 18.061571 | 57 |
| value-added tax (vat) | 249 | 312 | 18.059408 | 80 |
| world trade organization | 3718 | 7258 | 18.056709 | 51 |
| financial action task force | 283 | 381 | 18.055482 | 74 |
| debt structure | 310 | 438 | 1 |