Science, research and partnership for the 2030 Agenda

The goal that holds up the other sixteen.

The seventeenth Sustainable Development Goal is the least glamorous one: partnerships. Yet almost every other goal depends on it, because the telescopes, data systems, genome centres and research networks that underpin progress are too large, too costly or too cross-border for any one country to build alone.

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Silhouette of a radio telescope dish against a dark blue evening sky, with dozens of other dishes on the horizon
MeerKAT, South Africa, a precursor of the Square Kilometre Array. Photo: SKAO / SARAO, CC BY 3.0.
Computer rendering of a satellite with a long solar panel array orbiting above the curved Earth Featured explainer · Research infrastructures

How space technology supports the Sustainable Development Goals

Earth observation, satellite navigation and communications quietly feed dozens of SDG indicators. What each does, which UN bodies and treaties govern them, the Space2030 Agenda, and the risks that come with crowded orbits.

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Affordable housing in numbers, and fair rents

Slums, housing cost burdens and overburden rates in figures, and a step-by-step method for checking a rent.

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Childhood cancer in Africa

Why survival is so much lower than in high-income countries, and the research priorities that could narrow the gap.

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Digital and high-tech skills for the SDGs

What indicator 4.4.1 measures, the connectivity gap, frameworks such as DigComp, and what tends to work in building skills.

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How the EU and the UN work together

The EU's status at the UN, Team Europe and Global Gateway, SDG reporting, research cooperation and the tensions worth knowing.

 A printed grid chart of weekly diphtheria notifications in 1901, with columns of shaded squares rising to a peak in midsummerHealth and data

Health data and the SDGs

What SDG 3 asks countries to measure, where the numbers come from, and why so many health systems still lack timely data.

 Rows of black server racks with blue cabling in a brightly lit data centreHealth and data

GDPR and health research

Legal bases, special category data, the Article 89 research regime and international transfers, explained for research teams.

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Topic

Research infrastructures

Telescopes, biodiversity networks, satellites and genome centres: the shared tools of global science.

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Health and data

Health information systems, data protection in research, genomics and childhood cancer.

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Inclusion and rights

Assistive technology, women in innovation, legal identity, the right to privacy and affordable housing.

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Cooperation and skills

How multilateral partners, food research systems and digital skills feed into the 2030 Agenda.

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