Background: The implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) requires much planning and the provision of resources, especially regarding the necessary investments, technologies and infrastructures needed. Yet, it is presently unclear how available these elements are, what gaps exist, what changes have taken place in terms of their availability since the adoption of the SDGs and what their requirements will be in the future. The knowledge gap has become even more concerning because of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a bibliometric analysis, an assessment of the global progress of SDG implementation and requirements, identifying challenges through the development of a matrix, and a set of 11 case studies to triangulate the holistic analysis, an assessment of the global progress of the SDGs implementation and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on this process was carried out. Results: The findings suggest that the scope and width of resources limitation are currently undermining the implementation of the SDGs. Apart from the fact that the pace of progress has been insufficient, the potential of the SDGs in pursuing sustainability and improving life quality is not fully realised. This trend suggests that a substantial acceleration of the efforts is needed, especially for the five SDGs whose progress since 2015 has not been optimal, namely SDG2, SDG11, SDG13, SDG15, and SDG16, while SDG3, SDG7, SDG9, SDG14, and SDG17 show signs of progress. The case studies showed that different industries have dissimilar effects on achieving the SDGs, with the food sector correlating with 15 SDGs, as opposed to the energy sector correlating with 6 SDGs. Accordingly, the priority level assessment in terms of achieving the SDGs, points to the need to further advance the above-mentioned five SDGs, i.e., 2, 11, 13, 15 and 16. Conclusions: This study fills in a knowledge gap in respect of the current need for and availability of investments, new technologies, and infrastructures to allow countries to pursue the SDGs. It is suggested that this availability is rather limited in specific contexts. In respect of the needs to be addressed, these include resource-related constraints, limited technologies and infrastructures, affecting SDG2, SDG11, SDG13, SDG15, and SDG16, whose progress needs to be enhanced. Since the global progress in the process of implementation of the SDGs depends directly and indirectly on addressing the resource gaps, it is suggested that this topic be further investigated, so that the present imbalances in the three dimensions of sustainable development: the economic, social and environmental, be adequately addressed.

The crisis caused by COVID-19 has affected research in a variety of ways. As far as research on sustainable development is concerned, the lockdown has significantly disrupted the usual communication channels and, among other things, has led to the cancellation of meetings and long-planned events. It has also led to delay in the delivery of research projects. There is a gap in the literature in regards to how a global crisis influences sustainability research. Therefore, this ground-breaking paper undertakes an analysis of the extent to which COVID-19 as a whole, and the lockdown in particular, has influenced sustainability research, and it outlines the solutions pursued by researchers around the world to overcome the many challenges they have experienced. This paper also outlines some measures that may be implemented in the future to take more advantage of existing technologies that support research on sustainable development.

The objective of this study was to show how the training of service employees contributes to enhancing the customer’s service experience in the context of small, family-owned provincial restaurants. This type of restaurant is particularly relevant to the regional employment and economy in Mexico’s countryside. However, as the human resources that are available are generally limited, training becomes relevant to develop proper service skills and customer orientation. The effectiveness of training in the improvement of service quality was evident after the comparison of measures of service quality and perceived price before and after service-employees completed the training.

The paper aimed to analyze the open innovation model from the Latin-American public university and the main factors that influence it. The interaction between the university with its ecosystem, its innovation and technology management, the profile of the academic community, and innovation policies were studied. The research methodology had a qualitative approach. And the process was integrated into three phases to identify the categories of open innovation, categorized the interaction between the university with the innovation ecosystem in four Mexican public universities, and triangulate the Latin-American behavior through semi-structured interviews to six academics. The main findings showed that open innovation is a feasible platform to link the Latin-American University with local enterprises despite the peculiar heterogeneous and unequal context of the ecosystem; furthermore, four collaborative flows between the university and the ecosystem were identified –inside, outside, mixed and hybrid-. In conclusion, the interdisciplinary approach, the techno-institutional networks, and the institutional policy influence open innovation from the university to the ecosystem, where the academic community is a mediator variable. Finally, it is highlighted that new re-institutionalization of innovation policies based on digital transformation and environmental sustainability are required; thus, Latin-American Schools of Innovation Taught are needed to encourage them.