Here are SWEAH's new PhD students

Together, the newly admitted PhD students have knowledge and experience from large parts of the world, from Mexico via Bangladesh to West Africa.

– I was recommended by some who are already connected to SWEAH to also join. It is valuable to learn more about the theories and meet more people in the research field, says Franziska Steffens, PhD student at Karolinska Institutet.

For Ana Sabsil López Rocha, also from KI, it was an interesting SWEAH course there on inequalities in ageing that made her applying to the graduate school.

– That's how I first discovered SWEAH. Now of course I also want to network, I want to learn from everyone, professors and PhD students and their various research projects. So that I can find my research path, she says.

– Being in this research environment gives me resources that I can benefit from. It was the courses that made me apply, but it will also be fun to make contacts with other PhD students, says doctoral student Landry Botokou, Linköping University.

Their research themes are widely different, from neuroscience to social work, but all have the common denominator of ageing and health.

The advantages are many, but it can also be a challenge, both for SWEAH to arrange, and for the PhD student to participate in a national graduate school in addition to the regular doctoral education. It should not clash with the graduate school's courses, but that the PhD students receive a further developing supplement.

– It is important to complete your mandatory courses. Sometimes we are contacted, it is important that we have transparent communication with the home university, says SWEAH's coordinator Susanne Iwarsson.

She and SWEAH's study coordinator, Steven Schmidt, also reminded how important it is to know what interdisciplinary research, which SWEAH PhD students will conduct and which is requested by grantors, really means - and the terminology of the research, already now at the beginning of the career. There is much to learn from fellow students.

– Your own terminology will be challenged. Who is older and what is ageing? You will notice that it occurs at different ages depending on the discipline and context, says Steven Schmidt.

For example, solely studying the illness of older people is not ageing research, if it is not studied with the connection of ageing and health.

A total of 14 PhD students applied for affiliation 2025 and 11 were accepted in this 12th round at SWEAH;