Because of the vital role of science in accomplishing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), this paper endeavors to assess the status of scientific research related to SDGs fulfilled by Iraqi universities during the period from 2018 to 2023. This study aims to investigate the shortage of publications produced generally by Iraq and particular universities based on Relative Activity Index (RAI). In addition, an improved method has been used to calculate the required number of publications to meet the global average level of publication related to SDG 4 (Good Education).
This study comprehensively analyzes the research output related to the SDGs from a total of 109,671 papers published in Scopus by Iraqi universities between 2018 and 2023. This study investigated the impact of SDG publications in Iraq based on the Field-Weighted Citation Impact. The analysis findings could offer valuable insights for decision-makers in the Iraqi Higher Education sector such as chancellors, vice chancellors for scientific affairs, deans, heads of departments, university ranking coordinators and heads of quality assurance.
The findings of this study reveal significant gaps in SDG publications across Iraqi universities, emphasizing the need for strategic research activities and collaborations to meet global standards.
It is important to acknowledge the limitations of this study to provide a balanced perspective on the findings. This analysis relies exclusively on publications indexed in the Scopus database. While Scopus is one of the world’s largest and most reputable curated databases for peer-reviewed literature, it does not capture all scholarly output.
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is important to mention that this study is the first to analyze the SDGs publications of Iraqi universities.
