Mapping Economic Growth and Employment in EU-Funded Research Projects: Trac(k)ing the SDG 8 Trajectory

Research on Sustainable Development Goal 8 (SDG 8) promotes sustained economic growth, full and productive employment, and decent work. This paper presents a complementary approach to standard systematic literature reviews and monitors the intended ex-ante research efforts on SDG 8. We introduce a large-scale research project analysis framework to trace and track the prevalence of SDGs within research funded by the European Union (EU) since 1984, underscoring the EU's significant role in promoting research on sustainable development. Using the publicly available CORDIS database, we identify the extent to which SDG 8 related targets have been represented in the titles and abstracts of projects funded by the EU's Framework Programmes. Our findings reveal that SDG 8-related research projects are dominated by four targets: economic growth, productivity, entrepreneurship and decent work, and full and decent employment.