Sustainability in Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure: A MCDM Based Performance Evaluation of European Union and Türkiye for Sustainable Development Goal 9 (SDG 9)

Purpose: The aim of this study is to perform two distinct cross-country evaluations including European Union (EU) countries and Türkiye, focusing on Sustainable Development Goal 9 (SDG 9): Industry, innovation and infrastructure. The study aims to obtain rankings that display the relative standings of countries and identify areas for potential enhancement. Methodology: An integrated objective criteria weighting, VIKOR, and MAIRCA based Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) approach has been employed. Findings: Based on the first analysis, high speed internet coverage (HSI) and the share of rail and inland waterways in inland freight transport (SRI) were prominent criteria, and in the MCDM analysis, Sweden displayed the highest performance, while Greece and Croatia showed the lowest performance. In the second analysis, which included Türkiye, tertiary educational attainment (TEA) criteria stood out; while, Sweden maintained its leading position. Türkiye initially had poor performance in the early years but later improved, reaching a mid-level position among 26 countries by 2020. However, a significant decline in performance was observed in the last two years. In addition, during the handled period Türkiye witnessed a decline in both the number of patent applications and the share of buses and trains in inland passenger transport. Thereby, novel policies and incentives could be formulated to overcome these issues. Originality: Two distinct cross-country analyses were conducted in accordance with the SDG 9 by adopting the most recent data and an integrated methodology. Within this context, EU countries were compared both among themselves and with Türkiye, and valuable findings were presented.