According to the United Nations, the current COVID-19 crisis is threatening decades of development gains. This situation is aggravated in disadvantaged urban areas where 25% of the world’s population lives. Such concentration has aggravated the multidimensional problem that requires an integrated policy approach. Internationally, this approach has materialized in the formulation of global policies such as the 2030 Agenda. However, many doubts remain about the extent to which global policy such as the 2030 Agenda is able to inspire the formulation of local policies from the multidimensional perspective proposed by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). To answer this question, in this contribution we rely on a comparative case study of two public policies aimed at promoting the social inclusion of the most vulnerable groups in the urban context: the “Andalusian Regional Strategy for Social Cohesion and Inclusion. Intervention in disadvantaged areas” (ERACIS) and the “Barcelona Strategy for Inclusion and Reduction of Social Inequalities 2017–2027”. The results show how the government sphere, the logic of intervention, and other aspects of policy design influence the incorporation of the principles of the 2030 Agenda in local policies, highlighting both risks and potentials of such policy transfer, crucial to the effective achievement of the SDGs.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) were set up under the idea that no one—and no place—be left behind. Today, the tendency for population growth concentrates in cities, causing social segregation and the proliferation of marginalized urban areas. In this global context, SDG 11, which addresses the urban dimension of the 2030 Agenda, is becoming crucial. To achieve inclusive and sustainable development, especially in disadvantaged urban areas, collaborative partnerships have been suggested as essential to building habitable spaces where life is worth living. However, the literature reveals how the commitment to multistakeholder partnerships depends on many factors, such as the perceptions the participants have about their reality and the problems they face. In this study, we rely on the information collected from 118 surveys conducted among the leaders of private, public, and civil society organizations already collaborating in six disadvantaged neighborhoods in Andalusia. The results show how and where their perceptions about their own neighborhoods differ and the intersectional reasons behind these differing opinions. This is a critical starting point to elucidate how to enable and sustain local collective actions to start the process of fighting for human dignity.

Local governments are key to establishing public policies linked to the 2030 Agenda. To achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), public innovation is essential, and one of the essential pillars is transversality and partnerships (internal and external). This implies a transformative political, technical, and institutional culture that some authors have called, in the case of Andalusia, Spain, a “culture of solidarity”, as many of the elements of the 2030 Agenda are established within local organizations. This article aims to answer the question: Do Andalusian local authorities have an organizational culture and structure that facilitates the localization of the SDGs? To do so, it analyzes the conditioning factors, facilitators, and barriers that exist in local governments to advance in the mainstreaming of the localization and development processes of the 2030 Agenda in their territories. A study has been carried out on the perception of local technicians and the assessment of their own organization aligned with the 2030 Agenda. The results obtained indicate that local governments in Andalusia have made efforts to establish social actions and policies against poverty. The 2030 Agenda is perceived as an opportunity to transform local entities, with more open, collaborative, transversal, and interconnected institutions.

For decades, Participatory Action Research (PAR) has been extended as a scientific praxis applied in different contexts, characterised by the involvement of participating groups and oriented towards social transformation. However, there is a certain dialectical tension between those approaches that emphasise the method versus those that emphasise the pursuit of social change from a decolonial perspective. This article questions how this praxis is reflected in scientific transfer, analysing not only the development and scope of scientific production in PAR, but also how the academy may reproduce relations inherent to coloniality in this transfer. To this end, the production on PAR hosted on the Web of Science (WoS) is collected, and a bibliometric analysis is performed by applying descriptive and relational techniques using VosViewer software. The study concludes that scientific production has not stopped growing and that the areas of knowledge where it is applied have diversified. However, it also points out how the knowledge production model reproduces the power relations of coloniality, affecting PAR’s transfer. This analysis can contribute to the debate on a scientific approach oriented to improve processes of social transformation.

According to the United Nations, 70% of the world’s population will live in cities by 2050, increasing the proliferation of areas of social exclusion and thus polarization and segregation. The establishment of multidimensional measures seeks to identify such situations of social exclusion to inform social policies and interventions. However, some concerns emerge: Are these measures catching the needs of people living in particularly disadvantages areas? Do they offer a human-centred approach or a territorial focus? Is the multidimensionality of such measures reflecting nonmaterial aspects such as health, access to liveable environments or political participation? To analyse how the scientific literature is addressing the measurement of social exclusion to tackle such urban challenges, a systematic review following the PRISMA guidelines was performed in the Web of Science database. After screening following the inclusion criteria, 28 studies were identified that analysed systems of indicators that multidimensionally examined social exclusion at the individual and/or family level in urban contexts. Despite studies being eminently limited to some Western countries, the results revealed a broad diversity. However, very few of them fully focused on the specific characteristics of marginalized urban areas, and most found serious difficulties in overcoming a material approach.

In the field of qualitative research, life stories are consolidated as one of the most important techniques within the biographical method. However, due to the multiplicity of techniques covered by this method and the disciplines in which it is applied, the contributions and scope of life histories do not present a clear delimitation. By contrast, a considerable conceptual confusion persists and the transfer of its production remains very narrow. In this sense, this article aims to clarify the field of knowledge generated through life stories. To this end, it innovatively applies the bibliometric method. Making use of performance analysis and scientific mapping through the VosViewer application, it studies a body of 2670 articles indexed in the Web of Science. The results show how knowledge transferred from psychology through its major schools of thought occupies a central place. This leaves in a secondary position the knowledge produced by other disciplines such as sociology or anthropology, which is not transferred in the main forums of scientific impact. In this way, the conclusion points to the need to open up new lines of research to find out the differences between the different techniques and disciplines when applying this methodology.