DE MONTFORT University has released its Sustainable Development Goals report 2025 to mark its first year as a global academic hub chair for the SDGs.
In releasing the report, the Head of DMU’s SDG Impact Hub, Dr Mark Charlton, said…
“This year has been an important year – and proud one – for De Montfort University and its work with the Sustainable Development Goals and the United Nations.
“We were confirmed by the United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI) as the Global Academic Hub chair for SDG 11 Sustainable Cities and Communities to continue a proud achievement.
“DMU is the only university in the United Kingdom to hold the position of being a global academic hub and have now done so since 2019. Previously, we were the global academic hub for SDG 16 Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions from 2019 until the close of 2024.
“Our track record with SDG 16 saw us appointed to the hub chair post for SDG 11, which we delighted with because of the work the university has been doing with the City of Leicester on sustainability in the community over more than 40 years.
“The expanded network announced by the UNAI in January 2025 sees us chairing SDG 11 with the vice-chairs of University of Cologne in Germany (responsible for Teaching and Education); University of Vale do Rio dos Sinos in Brazil (Research); and the University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam (Outreach and Partnership).
“One of my proudest moments during the year was convening the first meeting of all the vice-chairs and DMU to officially getting the SDG 11 global academic hub up and running.”
The report only includes major engagement and research activity because of the extent and breadth of DMU’s work on the SDGs.
It was compiled using the news category from the DMU feed and the research is taken from DORA (The DMU Open Research Archive) and only includes open access papers published in 2025.
The alignment to the correct SDG is done through the European Union’s SDG Mapper and to qualify a paper’s content must contain at least 25 per cent of a particular goal to be included.
The report also shows the progress global on the SDGs as reported by the United Nations in their 2025 report.
The latest findings show that only 18% of the targets for the SDGs are set to be achieved by 2030, a further 17% show moderate progress, 31% minimal progress, but 17% of the targets are stagnating on their 2015 levels and a further 18% have actually regressed on 10 years ago.
The full DMU Sustainable Development Goals 2025 report can be read here.
The United Nations 2025 Sustainable Development Goals is available here.
Progress on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals