Sustainable development frameworks are largely reliant on sector-specific outcomes. This approach overlooks the governance of higher education institutions (HEIs)—the very establishments that generate knowledge, expertise, and human capital upon which the Sustainable Development Goals’ (SDGs’) outcomes ultimately depend. This Perspective aimed to advance the following argument. Meritocratic governance in HEIs is a structural determinant of sustainable development. HEIs constitute a core intellectual infrastructure which shapes workforce competence, capacity for innovation, and the basis of policymaking across several SDGs domains. These relevant SDGs domains entail health, education, economic productivity, technological advancement, equity, and institutional integrity. When HEIs recruitment, promotion, and selection of leadership are weakly aligned with established competence, the consequences extend beyond academic underperformance. It undermines SDGs via systemic inefficiencies, including suboptimal allocation of human capital, compromised research quality and innovation, and erosion of trust in institutions. These negative impacts weaken the intergenerational transmission of institutional capacity. In turn, the lack of meritocratic governance in HEIs is expected to constrain the progress toward SDGs. This Perspective draws on governance theory, development economics, and higher education research to reformulate meritocracy as institutional infrastructure in HEIs rather than a normative aspiration. In this formulation, meritocracy functions as a mechanism that governs talent allocation efficiency, strengthens professional legitimacy, and eventually facilitates the sustainable development. Thus, a transparent, accountable, and context-sensitive merit-based governance in HEIs is proposed as a key yet an overlooked pillar of the broader development architecture necessary to achieve SDGs.

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