Sustainability – is an essential condition for the survival and well-being of the world. This notion is highly supported in the The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted at the General Assembly by all United Nations (UN) Member States in 2015. This resolution represents a comprehensive plan of action to build a global partnership for sustainable development to improve human lives and protect the environment. The agenda is planned to be implemented by achieving 17 major goals and 169 more granular tasks till 2030.

Sustainability is one of the main VILNIUS TECH values on which the Strategy and the Research Focus of the University are based. Therefore, VILNIUS TECH scientists are actively performing research in this direction.

During 7 years after the announcement of the resolution, VILNIUS TECH researchers have published over 350 scientific publications in Web of Science (Clarivate Analytics) (WoS) database (DB) indexed journals in which the topics representing UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) stated in the resolution are analyzed (Fig. 1).


Fig. 1. The distribution of VILNIUS TECH publications published in Web of Science indexed journals by UN SDGs.

VILNIUS TECH have mostly contributed to the topic of Sustainable Cities and Societies, but a significant attention was also dedicated to the Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure, Affordable and Clean Energy, and Responsible Consumption and Production goals (Fig. 1, Table 1).

Table 1. VILNIUS TECH publications conforming to UN SDGs published in Web of Science indexed journals.

UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)	Web of Science publications	Times cited	Share of cited publications (%)	Share of publications in Q1 journals (%)	International collaboration (%)
11 Sustainable Cities and Communities	151	1010	76,82	16,28	37,09
09 Industry,  Innovation and Infrastructure	65	825	84,62	18,42	56,92
07 Affordable and Clean Energy	61	653	91,80	29,73	39,34
12 Responsible Consumption and Production	52	556	90,38	24,14	40,38
03 Good Health and Well-being	46	1616	82,61	25,00	52,17
06 Clean Water and Sanitation	40	120	70,00	15,00	22,50
13 Climate Action	35	375	80,00	14,29	45,71
08 Decent Work and Economic Growth	34	269	88,24	27,27	38,24
10 Reduced Inequality	24	85	79,17	8,33	37,50
15 Life on Land	21	152	66,67	45,45	47,62
04 Quality Education	17	59	58,82	0,00	5,88
02 Zero Hunger	14	79	71,43	37,50	57,14
14 Life Below Water	14	35	42,86	14,29	50,00
05 Gender Equality	11	29	72,73	33,33	27,27
16 Peace and Justice Strong Institutions	2	26	50,00	100,00	50,00
01 No Poverty	1	0	0,00	0,00	0,00

Therefore, it is not surprising that the most actively engaged in dissemination of scientific research results conforming to UN SDGs were researchers representing Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering and Business & Management faculties at VILNIUS TECH, and the highest contribution was made by prof. habil. dr. Edmundas Kazimieras Zavadskas who represents the Institute of Sustainable Construction (Table 2). The information presented in the 1st table also indicate that in solving global problems VILNIUS TECH scientists actively collaborate with foreign researchers.

Table 2. VILNIUS TECH authors who published the most (5 and more) publications conforming to UN SGD in Web of Science indexed journals.

VILNIUS TECH author	Web of Science publications	Times cited
Zavadskas,  Edmundas Kazimieras	21	597
Kaklauskas,  Artūras	16	158
Tvaronavičienė,  Manuela	13	150
Burinskienė,  Marija	12	84
Meidutė-Kavaliauskienė,  Ieva	11	89
Mažeikienė,  Aušra	10	35
Banaitis,  Audrius	9	168
Ginevičius,  Romualdas	9	39
Novickij,  Vitalij	9	31
Pašukonienė,  Vita	8	55
Antuchevičienė,  Jurgita	7	40
Baltrėnas,  Pranas	7	36
Grigonis,  Vytautas	7	15
Motuzienė,  Violeta	7	88
Ušpalytė-Vitkūnienė,  Rasa	7	12
Baltrėnaitė-Gedienė,  Edita	6	29
Paliulis,  Dainius	6	18
Podviezko,  Askoldas	6	116
Stankevičienė,  Jelena	6	32
Bagdžiūnaitė-Litvinaitienė,  Lina	5	11
Grubliauskas,  Raimondas	5	5
Litvinaitis,  Andrius	5	11
Okunevičiūtė-Neverauskienė,  Laima	5	21
Palevičius,  Vytautas	5	31
Sederevičiūtė-Pačiauskienė,  Živilė	5	6
Ubartė,  Ieva	5	84
Vilutienė,  Tatjana	5	96

A significant part of VILNIUS TECH publications aligning with UN SDGs were published in the journals of the highest quality (Q1), and the relevance and importance of the research described in these papers is also proven by the high citation rates (Tables 1 and 2). It should be noted, that even 4 of these publications, according to the Essential Science Indicators (ESI) citation thresholds, in WoS DB are recognized as the Highly Cited Papers, and two of them even reach the highest citation threshold for Hot Papers (Table 3).

Table 3. VILNIUS TECH publications aligning with UN SDGs published in Web of Science indexed journals and having reached the highest citation thresholds.

VILNIUS TECH publication	SDG (topic)	Citation level (by ESI)
Blach, S., Zeuzem, S., Manns, M., Altraif, I., Duberg, A.-S., Muljono, D. H., Waked, I., Alavian, S. M., Lee, M.-H., Negro, F., Abaalkhail, F., Abdou, A., Abdulla, M., Abou Rached, A., Aho, I., Akarca, U., Al Ghazzawi, I., Al Kaabi, S., Al Lawati, F., ..., Liakina, V., et al. (2017). Global prevalence and genotype distribution of hepatitis C virus infection in 2015: a modelling study. LANCET GASTROENTEROLOGY & HEPATOLOGY, 2(3), 161–176. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2468-1253(16)30181-9	03 Good Health and Well-being
Nosratabadi, S., Mosavi, A., Shamshirband, S., Zavadskas, E. K., Rakotonirainy, A., & Chau, K. W. (2019). Sustainable Business Models: A Review. SUSTAINABILITY, 11(6). https://doi.org/10.3390/su11061663	09 Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
Khan, S. A. R., Zhang, Y., Kumar, A., Zavadskas, E.K., Streimikiene, D. (2020). Measuring the impact of renewable energy, public health expenditure, logistics, and environmental performance on sustainable economic growth. SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT, 28(4), 833–843. https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.2034	09 Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
Melendez-Martinez, A. J., Boehm, V., Borge, G. I. A., Pilar Cano, M., Fikselova, M., Gruskiene, R., Lavelli, V., Loizzo, M. R., Mandic, A. I., Mapelli Brahm, P., Misan, A. C., Pintea, A. M., Sereikaite, J., Vargas-Murga, L., Vlaisavljevic, S. S., Vulic, J. J., O’Brien, N. M. (2021). Carotenoids: Considerations for Their Use in Functional Foods, Nutraceuticals, Nutricosmetics, Supplements, Botanicals, and Novel Foods in the Context of Sustainability, Circular Economy, and Climate Change. In M. Doyle & D. J. McClements (Eds.), ANNUAL REVIEW OF FOOD SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, 12, 433–460. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-food-062220-013218	03 Good Health and Well-being

Prepared by:
Scientific Information Department
Head Dr. R. Pranckutė