# Nexus — Summary of approach and main findings

**Nexus maps 400 CORDIS projects (Horizon Europe, Horizon 2020 and FP7) to the SDG taxonomy, with the evidence behind every link.** Each link answers one question: which activity, in which phase and scope, supports which part of which goal, according to which evidence and which rule. Interactive map: **nexus.foaap.app**.

## Approach

- **Official data, fingerprinted.** The three CORDIS project datasets from the EU Open Data Portal, each recorded with its retrieval time and SHA-256.
- **The project's own work first.** Each objective is split into numbered, hashed passages. A local open-weight model writes down what the project itself does (its activities, separated from background, earlier work and later phases) before any SDG is shown.
- **Written rules decide.** Each candidate goal or target is checked against that record with one of 186 written rules (80 authored by hand): a purpose test, a scope test and the leaps that are not allowed. Code verifies every quote, can only lower a verdict, and records one of four states. *No justified mapping* is a result, not a gap.
- **Proven, not asserted.** The published map rebuilds byte for byte from the official archives and the recorded answers, with zero model calls.

## Main findings

- **307 of 400 projects (77%)** have at least one justified SDG; **70** have no supported or open link among assessed candidates (64 still have pending candidates), 18 have only open links (uncertain or insufficient evidence), and 5 are not yet assessed.
- **915 supported links**, 46% at target level (the most precise concept the text supports).
- **Most represented:** Industry and innovation (SDG 9, 133 projects), Good health (SDG 3, 68), Climate action (SDG 13, 57), Responsible consumption and production (SDG 12, 53). **Least represented:** No poverty (SDG 1, 6), Gender equality (SDG 5, 9), Life below water (SDG 14, 12).
- **By programme:** 78% of Horizon Europe projects have a justified SDG, 75% of Horizon 2020 and 62% of FP7.
- **EUR 856.9 million of the EUR 965.6 million** of EU funding in the collection (89%) sits in projects with at least one justified SDG.
- **911 of 915 links are planned contributions.** CORDIS objectives describe what projects set out to do; reported results live in separate report fields.

## Validation

- On **20 untouched projects** drawn after the method was frozen, reviewed blind: **97%** of supported links are on a goal the reviewer also found and **79%** on the exact goal or target.
- An independent review of **80** random published links verified **every quoted passage** (80/80).

## Scope

Built in seven days (24–30 September 2026). The plan was all 23,451 Horizon Europe projects; the time allowed 400 across the three programmes. All 84,625 CORDIS projects is a question of compute, not a new method.

**Where to look:** the interactive map (nexus.foaap.app), the methodology notebook, the mapping table (Excel and CSV) and the description document.