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Sustainable Design and Development

Sustainable Design and Development is a research topic within Building and Construction. Science Explorer counts 3.4k research works in it since 1955. 10.6% of them reached the world's top 10% most cited for their field and year.

This cluster of papers covers a wide range of topics related to sustainable design, urban development, and environmental management. It includes discussions on circular economy, resource recovery, green urbanism, climate change, product development, biomimicry, and social innovation.

  • Sustainable Design
  • Urban Development
  • Circular Economy
  • Environmental Management
  • Resource Recovery
  • Green Urbanism
  • Climate Change
  • Product Development
  • Biomimicry
  • Social Innovation
Research works
3.4k
fractional, since 1955
In the world top 10%
355
per year above
Top-10% rate
10.6%
share of its works in the world top 10%
Growth, 2018-21 → 2022-25
+56%
the tick is no change
Largest producer
Brazil
38% of the 10 largest, 2022-now
Sustainable Design and Development

Which countries lead Sustainable Design and Development research?

By volume, Brazil and the United States publish the most (306 and 110 works in 2022-now).

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 Brazil 306 works
  2. 2 United States 110 works
  3. 3 Italy 63 works
  4. 4 Spain 58 works
  5. 5 India 52 works
  6. 6 China 50 works
  7. 7 United Kingdom 49 works
  8. 8 Portugal 47 works
  9. 9 France 40 works
  10. 10 Indonesia 33 works

How concentrated that is

The same countries as shares of everything the list above accounts for. A node where two countries do two thirds of the work and one spread evenly across twelve read alike as a ranking and not at all alike here.

Brazil: 37.8%United States: 13.6%Italy: 7.8%Spain: 7.1%6 others listed: 33.6%38%largest
Brazil306 · 37.8%United States110 · 13.6%Italy63 · 7.8%Spain58 · 7.1%6 others listed272 · 33.6%

Shares of the rows listed above, not of the whole node.

Which institutions lead Sustainable Design and Development research?

By volume in 2022-now, Universidade do Estado de Minas Gerais publishes the most Sustainable Design and Development research, followed by Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina and Politecnico di Milano.

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 Universidade do Estado de Minas GeraisBrazil 17 works
  2. 2 Universidade Federal de Santa CatarinaBrazil 16 works
  3. 3 Politecnico di MilanoItaly 13 works
  4. 4 Universidade de São PauloBrazil 13 works
  5. 5 Centre National de la Recherche ScientifiqueFrance 11 works
  6. 6 Universidade Federal de PernambucoBrazil 10 works
  7. 7 University of MinhoPortugal 10 works
  8. 8 Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp)Brazil 9 works
  9. 9 Universidade de BrasíliaBrazil 8 works
  10. 10 Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de JaneiroBrazil 7 works

Who are the leading researchers in Sustainable Design and Development?

The most-cited researchers publishing on Sustainable Design and Development include Seeram Ramakrishna.

  1. 1 Seeram Ramakrishna Singapore 186k citations

Ranked by citations received across their whole record, among researchers with at least three works on this topic.

What are the most cited papers in Sustainable Design and Development?

The most cited paper in Sustainable Design and Development is "Developing the circular economy in China: Challenges and opportunities for achieving 'leapfrog development'" (Yong Geng, Brent Doberstein, 2008), with 852 citations. Next come "Transition Design: A Proposal for a New Area of Design Practice, Study, and Research" (532) and "Materials selection and design for development of sustainable products" (475).

Most cited papers
#PaperReleasedCitations
1 Developing the circular economy in China: Challenges and opportunities for achieving 'leapfrog development' Yong Geng, Brent Doberstein · International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology Jun 2008 852
2 Transition Design: A Proposal for a New Area of Design Practice, Study, and Research Terry Irwin · Design and Culture 3 Apr 2015 532
3 Materials selection and design for development of sustainable products Lennart Y. Ljungberg · Materials & Design (1980-2015) 2 Dec 2005 475
4 Bio-nanocomposite Materials for Food Packaging Applications: Types of Biopolymer and Nano-sized Filler Siti Hajar Othman · Agriculture and Agricultural Science Procedia Open access 2014 443
5 Sustainable and Bio-Based Food Packaging: A Review on Past and Current Design Innovations Florencia Versino, Florencia Ortega, Yuliana Monroy et al. · Foods Open access 2 Mar 2023 409
All 100 most cited papers, with filters and sorting

Where is Sustainable Design and Development research done?

The largest centres of Sustainable Design and Development research in 2022-now are São Paulo (Brazil), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Florianópolis (Brazil) and Belo Horizonte (Brazil). Among places with at least 20 works in it, it is an unusually large share of all research in Florianópolis, Belo Horizonte and Rio de Janeiro.

Largest cities, 2022-now

  1. 1 São PauloBrazil 50 works
  2. 2 Rio de JaneiroBrazil 29 works
  3. 3 FlorianópolisBrazil 26 works
  4. 4 Belo HorizonteBrazil 23 works
  5. 5 MilanItaly 15 works
  6. 6 RecifeBrazil 15 works
  7. 7 LondonUnited Kingdom 15 works
  8. 8 LisbonPortugal 15 works
  9. 9 CuritibaBrazil 14 works
  10. 10 BrasíliaBrazil 12 works

Where it is the local speciality

  1. FlorianópolisBR · 25.7 works24×
  2. Belo HorizonteBR · 22.6 works14×
  3. Rio de JaneiroBR · 29.5 works7.9×
  4. São PauloBR · 50.3 works7.1×
← less than its size predicts1×more →

Location quotient: how much more of its research is in Sustainable Design and Development than the world average.

See Sustainable Design and Development on the map

Where is the best place to study Sustainable Design and Development?

Among universities, judged by research, Politecnico di Milano, University of Minho and Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina score highest, combining excellence, specialisation, size, growth and international reach. Research strength is one signal when choosing where to study; it does not measure teaching.

0%10%20%30%mean 7.64286%fractional works in this field (log) →share of work in the world top 10% →University of MinhoPolitecnico di MilanoUniversidade Federal…Universidade do Esta…
above the meannear itbelow it

One dot per university in the first ten of the table below, at the default weights. The upper left is the interesting corner: small places doing unusually strong work.

Excellenceshare of its work in the world top 10%, 2022-now and all time averaged
40%
Specialisationhow much of its work is in this field, counted up to 10× the world share
10%
Sizeits output in this field, on a log scale
30%
Growthoutput growth, counted from -20% to +20%
10%
Internationalshare of its work with a co-author abroad
10%
Each slider sets a weight; the share it gets of the score is beside it.
#UniversityScoreTop 10%SpecialisationWorksGrowth
1Politecnico di MilanoItaly 79.915.1%17.4×14 +67.6%
2University of MinhoPortugal 74.726.8%26.0×10 +141.1%
3Universidade Federal de Santa CatarinaBrazil 53.22.6%23.1×16 +23.1%
4Universidade do Estado de Minas GeraisBrazil 50.72.1%161.5×17 +26.3%
5Universidade de São PauloBrazil 41.54.6%5.8×13 +19.1%
6Universidade Federal de PernambucoBrazil 30.80.3%19.1×10 +70.9%
7Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp)Brazil 14.62.0%10.0×9 -24.9%

Universities only. The score blends excellence (40%), size (30%), specialisation (10%), growth (10%), international reach (10%), 2022-now; growth compares 2018-21 with 2022-25 and counts up to +20%, since a jump from a small base is mostly noise.

Every institution in Sustainable Design and Development, country by country

Is Sustainable Design and Development research growing?

Output in 2022-2025 was 56% higher than in 2018-2021, peaking in 2025. The fastest-growing topics are Sustainable Design and Development.

still counting19801990200020102020
grewheldshrank

The same series as a ribbon: one cell per year, darker for more. The line above answers how much; this answers when.

Its share of all research

Growing output can still be a shrinking share: all of science grows. This is Sustainable Design and Development as a percentage of every work published that year, 0.0044% in 2024.

still counting0.0025%0.0050%0.0075%Sustainable Design and Development0.0069% in 202519801990200020102020

Fractional works of Sustainable Design and Development over all fractional works that year. How the balance of science has shifted.

How much of it reaches the world top 10%

Year by year.

still counting5%10%15%Sustainable Design and Development10.2% in 202520102020

Of each year's works in it, the share that reached the world's 10% most cited for their field and year. A field is the world for its own topics, so there is no other line to hold it against.

Which topics inside it are moving

Growth and decline on one axis around a shared zero. Two lists side by side hide the thing that matters: whether the growth dwarfs the decline, or the other way round.

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