The United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a roadmap for how we can work together to create a better world for people and the planet. Queen’s alignment with the SDGs reflects the university’s vision that our community will solve the world’s most significant challenges with their intellectual curiosity, passion to achieve, and commitment to collaborate.

For the second year, Queen’s has released a social impact report, highlighting the university’s activities in research, teaching, outreach, and stewardship that support advancing the UN SDGs. A key focus of the 2021-2022 report is recognizing the efforts made by Queen’s faculty, staff, students, and alumni to confront COVID-19 and its unprecedented and unpredictable set of challenges.

Queen’s contributions to advancing social impact in our local, national, and international communities has been recognized by the Times Higher Education (THE) Impact Rankings, the only global performance tables that assess universities against the UN SDGs. In both 2021 and 2022, Queen’s was ranked among the top 10 universities globally in the THE Impact Rankings.

This year’s report references a wide variety of Queen’s programs, partnerships, and infrastructure that align with the values of the SDGs. A few examples include the work of the Campus and Community Engagement Sustainability Sub-Working Group to advance SDG 13: Climate Action, Queen’s Women in Science and Engineering (WiSe) student-run organization which is advancing SDG 5: Gender Equality to promote and encourage women to pursue STEM studies, and the launch of the Graduate Inclusivity Fellows initiative aligned with SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities where graduate students and postdoctoral fellows are contributing to strategies and programs to improve the learning experience related to equity, diversity, inclusion, and Indigeneity.

Housed on the Advancing Social Impact website, in addition to the report, users can find further information on key initiatives and engage with additional images and video that illustrate the community’s action and impact.

To learn more about Queen’s commitment to the SDGs and to read the report, visit the website.