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A team of researchers from universities and technology centres in Belgium, Sweden and Spain has used artificial intelligence (AI) to analyse how the main research agencies in Europe and the United States — the European Research Council (ERC) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) — invest their funds in meeting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The conclusions reveal the different funding priorities of each agency. Europe is committed to the life and social sciences, especially health and climate research. At the same time, US investment is more focused on engineering and the physical sciences, emphasising infrastructure and security.

Both the ERC and the NSF favour goals related to the economy, especially Goal 9, which is dedicated to building resilient infrastructure, promoting sustainable industrialisation and fostering innovation.

On the other hand, there are marked gender disparities among the main researchers of the proposals funded by both entities in almost all the objectives. In the case of those related to physical sciences and engineering (SDGs 7 and 9), more than 80% of the project managers are exclusively men. Women researchers are better represented only in Goal 5, which focuses specifically on achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls.

The paper, recently published in Results in Engineering journal, covers proposals accepted by the ERC and the NSF between 2015 and 2023. Among the authors of the paper are Javier García Martínez, Professor in the Department of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Alicante (UA), and Sergio Hoyas, J. Alberto Conejero and Òscar Garibo i Orts, from the Research Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics at the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV).

This analysis indicates the urgent need for more inclusive approaches for adequate and balanced funding to fulfil the SDGs. Although the allocation of grants is traditionally based on scientific and merit criteria, the authors of the article recommend alternative allocation strategies with a more comprehensive approach.

‘Unlike conventional systems that evaluate the individual performance of projects, the collective impact of multiple projects could be considered with the aim of maximising social benefits and addressing broader public needs,' say the researchers from the University of Alicante and the Universitat Politècnica de València. 'Diversity in research paths must be promoted, and collaboration encouraged to achieve the SDGs, as well as to align scientific efforts with collective well-being,' they add.

The SDGs, approved by the United Nations in 2015 as part of the 2030 Agenda, constitute a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and improve the lives and prospects of people worldwide. 'If we want to make progress on the 2030 Agenda, we need more diverse research funding that overcomes biases and preferences,' the authors of the article insist.

In addition to the UPV and the UA, the study includes researchers from the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm (Sweden), the Université Libre de Bruxelles and the Université Catholique de Louvain, both in Belgium.

Reference:

Panagiotis Varelas, Francesca Larosa, Sergio Hoyas, J. Alberto Conejero, Francesco Contino, Francesco Fuso Nerini, Javier García-Martínez, Òscar Garibo-i-Orts, Alessandro Parente, Ricardo Vinuesa, ‘Artificial intelligence reveals unbalanced sustainability domains in funded research’, Results in Engineering (2025) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rineng.2025.104367

Graph 1: Distribution by SDG of projects funded between 2015 and 2023 by the European Research Council (a) and the National Science Foundation (b).

Graph 2: Gender biases in ERC (a) and NSF (b) science funding.