TY - JOUR T1 - It is time for academic institutions to align their strategies and priorities with the Sustainable Development Goals JF - BMJ Global Health DO - 10.1136/bmjgh-2018-001067 VL - 3 IS - 6 SP - e001067 AU - Corrado Cancedda AU - Agnes Binagwaho AU - Vanessa Kerry Y1 - 2018/12/01 UR - http://gh.bmj.com/content/3/6/e001067.abstract N2 - Summary boxThere are strategic reasons and value-generating opportunities for academic institutions to fully embrace and actively pursue the health-related Sustainable Development Goal (SDG3) and other SDGs.The SDGs will incentivise academic institutions to think long term and strategically, align fundraising to the pursuit of local priorities, use common health-related metrics to monitor progress, collaborate across sectors and establish effective global health partnerships.The SDGs will also incentivise academic institutions to perfect metrics for institutional capacity strengthening and sustainability, which should be a stated and measurable outcome of any global health partnership.It has been almost 3 years since the United Nations announced the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 2030 Agenda.1 The third of the 17 goals (SDG3) is specifically focused on health and is composed of 13 targets addressing a comprehensive set of global health priorities (https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdg3). Successful pursuit of SDG3 will require strong leadership from national governments and the United Nations system but also from other partners including multilateral organisations, civil society, business and the private sector.2 Among the partners, academic institutions working in global health have a pivotal role to play.3 We argue that, although the SDGs are imperfect, there remain strategic reasons, value-generating opportunities and a moral responsibility for academic institutions both in high-income and low-income to middle-income countries to fully incorporate the pursuit of SDG3 and other SDGs into their strategies, plans or operations to help advance the SDGs globally (box 1).Box 1 Reasons for academic institutions to incorporate the pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) within their strategies and operations.A target date of 2030 will incentivise academic institutions to (a) think long term and strategically, and (b) answer the hard question: “Where do we want to be in 2030?”Academic institutions will also be incentivised to develop strategies that are driven by the SDGs rather than by the perceived availability of funding.SDGs will contribute to eliminating the false … ER -