Literary Analysis of the Connection between Urban Innovations and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

The connections between urban areas and innovations have been widely discussed and well recognized in both academia and practice. Notably, urban innovation (UI), as a type of innovation and/or innovation system, can significantly contribute to achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs). However, current research on UI and SDGs is still limited. To fill this research gap, this systematic literature review is conducted using published work in the first half of the SDG era, i.e., 2015 to 2022. It proposes the hierarchy of the urban innovation level and the SDG pizza model with a definition of UI. This systematic literature review is based on four main steps: literature selection, abstract screening, full-text review, and data extraction. In step #1, the keyword “urban innovation” is used to identify the initial publications. Next, an inclusion criterion is applied in step #2, which covers UI in the abstract. Then, an exclusion criterion is used in step #3, which covers the connection between/among UIs and any one or more SDGs. Step #4 is mainly data extraction following the full text review. This paper provides detailed results and discussions with a few critical views on this nexus analysis. This paper contributes to existing research by highlighting the importance of the innovation-sustainability nexus, particularly from the SDG perspective.