Building on a legacy: Emily Boyd on the next chapters for the Beijer Institute

On 1 September 2025, Professor Emily Boyd assumed the role of Director of the Beijer Institute, following the retirement of Professor Carl Folke. Emily joins the institute after seven years as Director of the Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies (LUCSUS). With an international career spanning leading universities in Sweden and the UK, she brings extensive expertise in sustainability research, leadership, and interdisciplinary collaboration. We caught up with Emily to learn more about her background, her future vision for the Beijer Institute, and the continued collaboration with the Stockholm Resilience Centre.

Emily, you’ve successfully led LUCSUS for seven years. What key lessons from that leadership experience will you bring to the Beijer Institute?

"Leading LUCSUS taught me the value of listening to people in an institution. It reinforced how vital it is to nurture collaborative teams, while also maintaining a strong commitment to research excellence and societal impact. Ensuring that science reaches beyond academia and engages with the public and decision-makers is important. I also learned a great deal about the challenges that leaders face in scientific environments. Putting the people at the heart of our work, being clear about expectations, and maintaining a positive and supportive leadership culture all matter greatly. These principles will guide my approach at the Beijer Institute as we respond increasingly to complex sustainability challenges."

The Beijer Institute sits at the unique intersection of ecology and economics. How do you see this interdisciplinary position evolving under your leadership?

"My research background has long focused on the linkages between nature and society. This includes economic / institutional dimensions, but also non-economic aspects that are difficult to measure, such as identity, social norms, and questions of equity and governance. I have worked extensively across disciplines, both in my research and leadership roles, and I see many critical unanswered questions at the intersection of ecological change, climate, and planetary wellbeing. In today’s rapidly changing world, understanding the role of collective institutions is particularly important, how they adapt to change, how they shape and respond to individuals’ aspirations, needs, and capabilities, and how they enable collective action. These questions are especially pressing in the current global context.

The Beijer Institute has a strong foundation of knowledge that can support exciting new directions. These include advancing understanding of public goods and their role in the global commons; exploring relationships between nature and individuals; developing new models of economics in the biosphere; and addressing underexplored areas such as ocean-based food systems, large-scale urbanisation, and land-use change. There are also important emerging challenges around new technologies, including artificial intelligence, and what they mean for sustainability.

I am also particularly interested in questions around climate-related loss and damage and the risks of maladaptation. These issues raise fundamental questions: when does adaptation become maladaptation, is maladaptation inevitable, and whose losses are recognised? They also draw attention to the social determinants and institutional drivers that steer societies in particular directions in how we engage with both global and local commons, often shaping long-term sustainability pathways. Exploring these challenges makes the normative foundations of sustainability and resilience explicit, emphasising wellbeing, as well as the values, assumptions, and ideas of fairness that underpin decisions in an increasingly uncertain world."

The Beijer Institute and Stockholm Resilience Centre have a long-standing, productive partnership. How do you envision strengthening and building upon this collaboration?

"As you know the collaboration between the Beijer Institute and the Stockholm Resilience Centre is a really unique example of complementary expertise. I see many opportunities to deepen joint research initiatives, share methodological innovations, and amplify impact through shared networks. While it is important for Beijer to maintain its distinct identity and independence, building on this strong history of collaboration is something I very much look forward to continuing and strengthening."

What aspects of the Beijer Institute's legacy are you most excited to build upon, and where do you see opportunities for new directions?

"I am deeply inspired by Beijer’s legacy of pioneering interdisciplinary research and its influence on sustainability science, as well as its ability to drive actionable policy on climate, biodiversity loss, and related global challenges. What makes this legacy particularly powerful is the Institute’s long-standing ability to bring ecological science into dialogue with economic reasoning, to question how economic rationales interact with ecological limits and societal values, and to foster curiosity-driven research that allows bold and exploratory questions to generate new understandings.

Looking ahead, I see opportunities to explore emerging themes that both complement and extend Beijer’s existing work at the interface of ecology and economics. These include planetary wellbeing, immobility, and the normative and ethical dimensions of ecological transformation. Working in an environment that explicitly connects ecological science with economic reasoning to address complex sustainability challenges excites me, particularly for its potential to inform actionable policy and promote safe and fair planetary stability and resilience. I am also motivated to expand dialogue between economics and ecology, and between the natural and social sciences, and beyond. Ensuring that our research continues to inform policy and real-world transformation processes is a key priority, one that aligns with the mission of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, and something I believe our unique collaboration can help us to achieve."