The publication of the Brundtland report in 1987 introduced the concept of sustainable development, placing “sustainability” as a unifying idea for all academic disciplines. Consequently, in the tourism sector, sustainable tourism emerged as a new approach to research in the field. Since then, the body of literature on sustainable tourism has only increased, as has the discussion around the conceptual structure of sustainable tourism among academics and professionals. The aim of the study is to complement this theoretical discussion with an inductive approach to the limits of the conceptual structure of sustainable tourism. To do so, we identify the main research topics in the field and their evolution in the past 32 years through bibliometric methods such as evaluative techniques, relational techniques, and visualization of bibliometric data techniques using the VOSviewer program. The results of the study reflect that the sustainable tourism has reached a complexity that is reflected in its current polyhedral content to function as a conceptual umbrella. In addition, it demonstrates that the bibliometric analysis is an adequate and useful methodology for academics and professionals involved in the academic debate around this field of knowledge.

Policy Coherence has undoubtedly been one of the catchwords in the international debate on development aid since the 1990s but, as many authors have stated, no generally accepted agreement has been reached on defining the concept. This paper performs a systematic review to date of the literature on Policy Coherence for Development, drawing a conceptual map aimed to put Policy Coherence for Development in its rightful place within the development aid system. Within this framework, some of the main debates on the topic will be outlined in order to contribute to the enhancement of Policy Coherence for Development.

Today, global challenges such as poverty, inequality, and sustainability are at the core of the academic debate. This centrality has only increased since the transition from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), whose scope is to shift the world on to a path of resilience focused on promoting sustainable development. The main purpose of this paper is to develop a critical yet comprehensive scientometric analysis of the global academic production on the SDGs, from its approval in 2015 to 2020, conducted using Web of Science (WoS) database. Despite it being a relatively short period of time, scholars have published more than five thousand research papers in the matter, mainly in the fields of green and sustainable sciences. The attained results show how prolific authors and schools of knowledge are emerging, as key topics such as climate change, health and the burden diseases, or the global governance of these issues. However, deeper analyses also show how research gaps exist, persist and, in some cases, are widening. Greater understanding of this body of research is needed, to further strengthen evidence-based policies able to support the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the achievement of the SDGs.

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The measurement of impacts has been considered one of the best methodologies to evaluate the level of achievement of social entities’ objectives as well as of their contribution to resolving social problems. Those methodologies can guide public policies and subsidies granting, as they help to identify the organizations producing a higher social value, and the effects of their projects. Our research focused on the effectiveness and the efficiency of social entities, measured through their capacity to generate impacts on their stakeholders. The research was realized through the analysis of a case study: the special education center for disabled youths, CEE-SA, in Spain. The social return on investment (SROI) methodology has allowed us to monetarize the social value created for stakeholders through the activity carried out by CEE-SA, and it provides information about the whole value creation process that is generated, for which the analysis and follow-up through the indicators offers a contribution to its management system. This case study can serve as a reference in assessing the management processes of similar entities and can also highlight SROI usefulness for public administrations as an assessment tool for subsidies granted on social criteria. The originality of this research relies on the new SROI methodology provided for the assessment of public financing decisions, especially in a field that remains as under-researched as special education schools.