Goal Seventeen: explainers on science and cooperation for the SDGs
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.
Goal Seventeen is an independent English-language publication that explains that machinery. Each article takes one subject where science, research or international cooperation meets the 2030 Agenda, sets out what is actually agreed or measured, and links to the primary source: the UN resolution, the EU regulation, the WHO report or the scientific organisation concerned.
The explainers are written for students, journalists, civil servants and researchers who need a reliable starting point, not a press release. Goal Seventeen does not organise events, represent any institution or speak on behalf of the United Nations.
Topics
- Research infrastructuresTelescopes, biodiversity networks, satellites and genome centres: the shared tools of global science.
- Health and dataHealth information systems, data protection in research, genomics and childhood cancer.
- Inclusion and rightsAssistive technology, women in innovation, legal identity and the right to privacy.
- Cooperation and skillsHow multilateral partners, food research systems and digital skills feed into the 2030 Agenda.
Latest explainers
- How the EU and the UN work together on the Sustainable Development Goals
An explainer on EU-UN cooperation for the 2030 Agenda: the EU's status at the UN, its development policy and funding instruments, Team Europe and Global Gateway, SDG reporting, research cooperation and the security-development nexus.
- Digital and high-tech skills for the SDGs: how they are defined and measured
How digital skills appear in the Sustainable Development Goals, what indicator 4.4.1 actually measures, the connectivity gap, competence frameworks such as DigComp, and what advanced skills like data science and cybersecurity add.
- Childhood cancer in Africa: the survival gap and what research can change
Why survival from childhood cancer is so much lower in many African countries than in high-income countries, the WHO Global Initiative for Childhood Cancer, and the research priorities that can narrow the gap.
- How space technology supports the Sustainable Development Goals
An explainer on space and the SDGs: Earth observation, satellite navigation and communications, the UN bodies and agreements involved, the Space2030 Agenda, and the risks that come with crowded orbits.
- Health data and the SDGs: what gets measured, and how
How progress on the health-related Sustainable Development Goals is measured: the main data sources, why many countries lack timely data, interoperability standards, and initiatives such as WHO SCORE and the European Health Data Space.
- GDPR and health research: the rules researchers actually work with
How the EU General Data Protection Regulation applies to health research: personal and special category data, legal bases, the research exemption in Article 89, pseudonymisation, international transfers and the European Health Data Space.
- The right to privacy at the United Nations: texts and mechanisms
How the right to privacy is protected in UN human rights law: Article 12 of the Universal Declaration, Article 17 of the ICCPR, General Comment 16, the General Assembly resolutions on privacy in the digital age, and the Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy.
- SDG 16.9: legal identity for all, and the role of digital ID
What SDG target 16.9 on legal identity means, how it is measured through birth registration, how many people still lack proof of identity, what the pandemic showed, and how digital and decentralised identity fit in.
- Research and innovation in agri-food systems: an explainer
Why research and innovation in food systems matter for SDG 2 and beyond, how international agricultural research is organised, the main areas of work today and the trade-offs they raise.
- Women and inclusive innovation: what the data show
Women's share of researchers and patent inventors, why the gap matters for the quality of research and products, the SDG targets concerned, and the measures with evidence behind them.
Looking for something specific? The full topic index lists every explainer by theme, and the about page explains how they are researched.