Evaluating Global Sustainability Indicators

The study used data from the SDG Index, Global Innovation Index (GII), and World Bank. Data on 122 countries were gathered for the years 2015 and 2020. The year 2015 was selected because it was when the 17 SDGs were adopted, while 2020 was the latest year with available data. The World Bank offers a data analysis and visualization tool for various topics such as health, corruption, economic growth, and poverty. The tool uses time-series data. It is flexible, allowing the creation of tables and graphs that are easy to share and save (World Bank, 2021 ). The GDP per capita values (economic facilitator) were gathered from the World Bank database. The GDP per capita data for the year 2019 were used because those for the year 2020 were not yet available at the time of the study.
The SDG Index and Dashboards provide a set of indicators for monitoring attainment of the SDGs and for complementing the standardization and compilation by national and international organizations (SDG Index, 2021 ). The data on the SDG Index (sustainable development) were collected from the SDG Index and Dashboards database. In the case of this variable, data for 2016 were collected because data for 2015 were not available. This data unavailability is one of the limitations of the study.
The GII captures the characteristics and trends of the global and national innovation ecosystems through new approaches and metrics (WIPO, 2021 ). This index provides data that enable both the assessment of innovative performance and the introduction of new policy measures of innovation. This index provides data on the institutional framework, human capital and research, and ecological sustainability (institutional, knowledge, and environmental facilitators, respectively).