Canadian HEIs’ contribution to the SDGs: what do the times higher education impact rankings unveil?

Purpose This study aims to assess the performance of Canadian higher educational institutions (HEIs) on the sustainable development goals (SDGs) from 2019 to 2023, determine where they have focused on, whether they have improved or not their performance and assess if having larger research income affects their sustainability performance. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected from the Times Higher Education Impact Rankings from 2019 to 2023 on 27 Canadian HEIs, and statistical tests were used to assess performance, trends and significant differences. Findings Results show that while overall Canadian HEIs are performing better on the SDGs, their minimum and maximum scores have improved and the variance across universities has declined; their performance on social and economic SDGs is significantly positive on some but not all these SDGs. More importantly, their environmental performance is poor, with a constant decline in their score on SDG#13 – climate action, which peaked in 2019 and was significantly higher than that of 2023. Results also show smaller research universities perform better than top institutions. Originality/value There is a lot of research on the impact of universities on the SDGs; however, this study makes a deeper and statistical assessment of a quarter of Canadian universities on all the SDGs, with important findings for decision makers to consider as they accept and act according to the role that educational institutions should play in sustainable development.