At the turn of the year, Kristina Jönsson passed on the baton as coordinator of Lund University's Agenda 2030 Graduate School, having built it up since its beginning five years ago. The graduate school was the first of its kind in Sweden and is part of the university's strategic sustainability initiative. The need for interdisciplinary collaboration was recognised in order to address the large and complex sustainability challenges facing society. The graduate school includes 30 doctoral students from all eight faculties, and research topics range from the Amazon rainforest to the rights of EU migrants and single-use medical devices. 

Markus Gunneflo notes that the more he learns about the Graduate School, the more enthusiastic he becomes.

"The doctoral students are working on incredibly exciting issues in their fields, and the interdisciplinary work creates interesting encounters between disciplines. The graduate school is important for the university and I appreciate that they have chosen to invest in doctoral training rather than hiring a professor with cutting-edge research in one particular field,' says Markus Gunneflo.

The research topics of today is important for the future

He is passionate about supporting young researchers in training and has been a member of the Graduate School's steering board since its inception. Taking on the role of coordinator was therefore a natural step," he says. Markus Gunneflo stresses that the way researchers approach topics today is important for how we do research in the future. He has also learnt a lot himself, having previously been responsible for doctoral students at the Faculty of Law.

"When meeting with PhD students, there is room for exchange and dialogue about research in a way that I rarely have with senior colleagues. It is so much fun to work with researchers in training and it is also a way to think about the future of the university."

We meet Markus Gunneflo in a corner room at the Juridicum in the centre of Lund. A simple Google search reveals his breadth and curiosity; he has researched and written articles on topics as diverse as armed drones, the history of international law, AI and government power. He has also studied previous models for the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs. 

The graduate school has now been running for five years, and the first PhD students have completed their dissertations, with a handful more in the pipeline. 

We asked Markus Gunneflo to list three important meanings that the graduate school has created for the university.

• Making sustainability concrete. "In the Graduate School, the doctoral students start from problems in the world, from important issues for the future. Investing in a graduate school does not only look good in a ranking, it is also necessary in terms of knowledge".
• An international place in the university. "When you talk about global issues, you can't just do it from Lund's perspective. Here, we have recruited PhD students from different educational backgrounds, from different parts of the world, to sit around a common table in Lund." 
• New approaches. "It is not only our thirty doctoral students who benefit from the Graduate School, our courses are open to all doctoral students at the university, but also to doctoral students outside Lund. The courses are run jointly by the faculties, new ways of delivering the courses are being explored, and interdisciplinary collaboration is also spreading through faculty teachers and supervisors". 

The faculties have an important role

The 2030 Agenda Graduate School has funding for three more years. The question is how Markus Gunneflo wants to develop the organisation in the future. He says it is important to maintain the current environment, but also to start thinking about the future, and the faculties have an important role to play here.

"At the moment we are not in a position to employ more PhD students in the Graduate School, but we believe we have something good to offer and I would like to find new ways of working together for this type of activity in the future." 

Markus Gunneflo notes that the global sustainability goals of Agenda 2030 are far from being achieved, and in many cases development has gone in the wrong direction:

"What are the opportunities and limitations of the current sustainability paradigm? Why are we struggling to solve some of the key global problems it identifies? With 2030 just around the corner, how should we address these challenges in the future? These are all important questions to work on. It is great that there is a place at Lund University where such work can be done, and even better that we have recruited an outstanding group of young researchers to do it."