Bibliometric indicators, by Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in South Africa
South Africa: Bibliometric indicators, by Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) was 817.01 Scientific publications in 2024. ▲ Rising
Bibliometric indicators, by Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in South Africa, 2015–2024
Source: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Measured in Scientific publications.
Analysis
South Africa recorded 817.01 Scientific publications for bibliometric indicators, by sustainable development goals (sdgs) in 2024.
That represents a change of up 9.2% on the previous year and up 37.7% over ten years.
Over the whole period, bibliometric indicators, by sustainable development goals (sdgs) in South Africa peaked at 836.38 Scientific publications in 2021 and was at its lowest, 593.53 Scientific publications, in 2015.
That places South Africa 31st out of 48 countries with data for 2024, putting it in the middle of the range.
Bibliometric indicators, by Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in South Africa, year by year
| Year | Scientific publications | Change |
|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 593.53 Scientific publications | — |
| 2016 | 613.48 Scientific publications | +3.4% |
| 2017 | 762.1 Scientific publications | +24.2% |
| 2018 | 815.83 Scientific publications | +7.1% |
| 2019 | 749.32 Scientific publications | -8.2% |
| 2020 | 792.84 Scientific publications | +5.8% |
| 2021 | 836.38 Scientific publications | +5.5% |
| 2022 | 831.49 Scientific publications | -0.6% |
| 2023 | 748.51 Scientific publications | -10.0% |
| 2024 | 817.01 Scientific publications | +9.2% |
Averages by decade
| Decade | Average | Lowest | Highest | Years |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010s | 706.85 Scientific publications | 593.53 Scientific publications | 815.83 Scientific publications | 5 |
| 2020s | 805.25 Scientific publications | 748.51 Scientific publications | 836.38 Scientific publications | 5 |
Countries ranked near South Africa
More public sector data for South Africa
- Arms imports 30.00 million SIPRI trend indicator values (2023)
- Arms imports (SIPRI trend indicator values), per capita 0.4746 SIPRI trend indicator values per person (2023)
- Arms imports (SIPRI trend indicator values), per unit of GDP 0.0001 SIPRI trend indicator values per US$ of GDP (2023)
- Arms imports (SIPRI trend indicator values), annual growth rate 0 % change on previous year (2023)
- Arms imports (SIPRI trend indicator values), gaps filled 30.00 million SIPRI trend indicator values (2023)
- Military expenditure (current USD), per capita 44.31 current USD per person (2024)
- Military expenditure (current USD), per unit of GDP 0.0071 current USD per US$ of GDP (2024)
- Military expenditure (current USD), annual growth rate -1.41 % change on previous year (2024)
- Military expenditure (current USD), gaps filled 2.84 billion current USD (2024)
- Arms imports (SIPRI trend indicator values), per square kilometre 24.73 SIPRI trend indicator values per square kilometre (2023)
Frequently asked questions
- What is bibliometric indicators, by sustainable development goals (sdgs) in South Africa?
- Bibliometric indicators, by sustainable development goals (sdgs) in South Africa was 817.01 Scientific publications in 2024, according to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
- What is the highest bibliometric indicators, by sustainable development goals (sdgs) recorded in South Africa?
- The highest recorded value was 836.38 Scientific publications in 2021.
- What is the lowest bibliometric indicators, by sustainable development goals (sdgs) recorded in South Africa?
- The lowest recorded value was 593.53 Scientific publications in 2015.
- How does South Africa rank for bibliometric indicators, by sustainable development goals (sdgs)?
- South Africa ranks 31st out of 48 countries with data for 2024.
- Is bibliometric indicators, by sustainable development goals (sdgs) rising or falling in South Africa?
- Over the last ten years it is up 37.7%. The long-run trend across the full record is rising.
- Where does this South Africa data come from?
- The figures come from Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, published as part of Bibliometric indicators, by Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) — Fractional counts of scientific publications. Statizoid updates them automatically from the source API.
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About this data
This dataset presents trends in the total number of scientific publications relevant to societal goals, as proxied by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) framework, expressed in fractional counts, for the 2015–2024 period. Coverage includes OECD member and accession countries, key partners (Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, and South Africa), and other selected non-OECD economies. This is an experimental indicator, developed under the OECD’s Fundstat initiative to improve evidence on the directionality and societal relevance of research and development (R&D) activities, by linking scientific output to 17 SDGs or none. To produce this indicator, the OECD developed a probabilistic AI-assisted classification model that identifies the SDG relevance of scientific publications based on their titles and abstracts. The approach builds on insights from the OECD International Survey of Science (ISSA2021), in which researchers reported which SDG their research contributed to. Using these responses, a labelled dataset was created to fine-tune SciBERT, a large language model (LLM) pre-trained on scientific literature, enabling it to predict the probability of relevance of a given text to each of the 17 SDGs, or to none. The trained classifier is then applied to publication titles and abstracts from the Scopus Custom Data. Publication counts are fractionalised across countries and aggregated annually for comparability. For further information on the methodology, see: Aristodemou, L., et al. (2025), “Assessing the direction of R&D funding towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with a new classifier and the OECD Fundstat infrastructure”, OECD Science, Technology and Industry Working Papers. Source: OECD Bibliometric Indicators, calculations based on Elsevier's Scopus Custom Data, Elsevier, Version 1.2026. Please cite as: OECD (2026), OECD Bibliometric indicators, OECD Science, Technology and Innovation Statistics, http://oe.cd/scientometrics, accessed on xx/xx/xxxx.