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A. L. Salvia and L. L. Brandli
sity role in sustainable development to its contribution towards SDG 7, as reflected
through publications over the last decade.
2 Methodology
The methodology on which the research for this paper is based, followed a three step
approach: (a) systematic review and a brief descriptive analysis of the researched
articles; (b) classification of the articles according to the approach provided by universities to contribute to sustainable development (SD); and (c) analysis of the interconnection between SDG 7 targets and the role played by universities.
2.1 Systematic Review and Descriptive Analysis
According to Denyer and Tranfield (2009), a systematic review locates existing articles, selects and evaluates contributions, analyses and synthesises data, and reports
evidence to allow clear conclusions about the subject. It differs from a literature
review due to the fact that it represents a research project that explores a specific
question with relevant criteria for selection/inclusion of articles.
In this context, this paper intends to evaluate and synthesise the articles based
on the following research question: what is the state of international scientific literature on the theme of energy efficiency and sustainability from the perspective of
universities’ role?
The search for relevant articles was performed with the aid of scientific literature
sources which are representative of academic articles published in peer-reviewed
journals. Databases were used to identify all articles published on the topics of energy
efficiency and sustainability in universities over the past ten years (2007–2017). The
sources of information used to identify the articles for this review were the scholarly
databases Web of Science and ScienceDirect, which provide online subscriptionbased scientific citation indexing services in many areas, including Energy, Engineering, Environmental Science and Social Sciences. They were chosen for being
important databases in these topics and for the ease of collecting the information
needed for analysis. Two different search strings were used, including “energy efficiency”, “energy sustainability” and “universit*” (to comprise university and universities as well) as keywords to identify scientific articles. The search strings are
presented in Table 3 and were defined based on the research question.
The search only considered scientific articles. Books, contributions to edited volumes, conference papers, periodicals, and working papers were not included in this
review. According to Podsakoff et al. (2005), this type of publications usually goes
through a less rigorous peer-review process and tend to be less readily available.
This and other criteria used to determine the articles that would be included in
the review are presented in Table 4. Papers in English, Portuguese and Spanish were
A. L. Salvia and L. L. Brandli
sity role in sustainable development to its contribution towards SDG 7, as reflected
through publications over the last decade.
2 Methodology
The methodology on which the research for this paper is based, followed a three step
approach: (a) systematic review and a brief descriptive analysis of the researched
articles; (b) classification of the articles according to the approach provided by universities to contribute to sustainable development (SD); and (c) analysis of the interconnection between SDG 7 targets and the role played by universities.
2.1 Systematic Review and Descriptive Analysis
According to Denyer and Tranfield (2009), a systematic review locates existing articles, selects and evaluates contributions, analyses and synthesises data, and reports
evidence to allow clear conclusions about the subject. It differs from a literature
review due to the fact that it represents a research project that explores a specific
question with relevant criteria for selection/inclusion of articles.
In this context, this paper intends to evaluate and synthesise the articles based
on the following research question: what is the state of international scientific literature on the theme of energy efficiency and sustainability from the perspective of
universities’ role?
The search for relevant articles was performed with the aid of scientific literature
sources which are representative of academic articles published in peer-reviewed
journals. Databases were used to identify all articles published on the topics of energy
efficiency and sustainability in universities over the past ten years (2007–2017). The
sources of information used to identify the articles for this review were the scholarly
databases Web of Science and ScienceDirect, which provide online subscriptionbased scientific citation indexing services in many areas, including Energy, Engineering, Environmental Science and Social Sciences. They were chosen for being
important databases in these topics and for the ease of collecting the information
needed for analysis. Two different search strings were used, including “energy efficiency”, “energy sustainability” and “universit*” (to comprise university and universities as well) as keywords to identify scientific articles. The search strings are
presented in Table 3 and were defined based on the research question.
The search only considered scientific articles. Books, contributions to edited volumes, conference papers, periodicals, and working papers were not included in this
review. According to Podsakoff et al. (2005), this type of publications usually goes
through a less rigorous peer-review process and tend to be less readily available.
This and other criteria used to determine the articles that would be included in
the review are presented in Table 4. Papers in English, Portuguese and Spanish were