here at glasgow caledonian university, the un’s sustainable development goals or sdgs are at the heart of our research strategy. we were the first to adopt this approach. these global goals reflect our ethos which is: university for the common good.

issued by united nations in 2015, applying to all countries and in place until 2030, the sdgs are an ideal statement of the research aspirations for a university with a commitment to the common good. these aspirations are realised through our applied research, which addresses three major societal challenges of inclusive societies, healthy lives and sustainable environments.

to address the sdgs, we have approved a number of thematic inter-disciplinary research centres, underpinned by several research groups and an inter-sectoral approach to addressing societal challenges locally and internationally.

reflecting our whole-institution approach to the common good, these challenge areas align strongly with our postgraduate research, our school structures, initiatives such as principles for responsible management education (prme) and ashoka u, gcu’s associated strategy for learning and our pursuit of research integrity. our research innovation office supports all our research activities across the university from funding, knowledge transfer partnerships (ktps) to consultancy and collaborations.

this whole-institution approach to the common good has resulted in glasgow caledonian university achieving top-50 ranking in 2018-19 and 2019-20 in the times higher education global social impact rankings which measure the success of higher education institutions against the sdgs.