After his studies at KTH in the late 80s, Sven-Anders quickly climbed the career latter and by 1992, he was already a purchasing manager with several staff. But after almost 30 years of success in business, he was wondering if there was also a different path out there for him.

As he contacted old colleagues, he discovered that there was a vast interest in purchasing research and that several people and organizations would consider supporting the research. It looked like Sven-Anders could get a solid foundation to start from. But how did people around him react so the drastic move?

"The response I have received has been incredible, and many people wonder how I dare. Several say that they have been dreaming about this themselves but never had the courage and think it’s fantastic that I’m doing this. I have never received so many positive comments and cheers as when I posted this career change on LinkedIn", says Sven-Anders.

No research center for purchasing in the Nordics

Sustainable purchasing as well as socially sustainable purchasing are now the two fields he has decided to focus on.

"There is no research center for purchasing in Sweden or in the Nordics at all, and it drove me to put my focus here. The Netherlands and the USA have established research centers since years back, but the Nordics are a white spot. I saw this as a market opportunity to make a difference and it has received a tremendous response", he says.

While a lot of paths within the theme seemed interesting, Sven-Anders has managed to delineate a research area which he will focus on in his thesis. It will be "procurement-driven sustainability" where he will investigate how procurement can step up and drive the change and transformation into the new ecosystem. There is already a good amount of research on supply chains, and Sven-Anders would like to look at the purchasing perspective and how it can play a role to make a difference in purchasing practices. He believes that there are many possibilities within sustainable supplier development, and even more so at social sustainable supplier development, and would like to look more closely at the role of purchasing and its opportunities and obstacles in sustainability.

"This is the first time in 30 years that I don’t have anyone to delegate tasks too, so I have to be careful not to get too ambitious, but it will be challenging since there is so much that interests me", says Sven-Anders. "There is definitely space for more researchers than me within this field".

Foundation for purchasing research

Even though Sven-Anders is just a second-year student at CSR, he has already been invited as a guest lecturer, has been interview and left comments on questions such as "what does the research at SSE say about purchasing?". He has developed a real passion for research issues and made many valuable contacts within the research world. He also has an ambitious plan ahead, once he’s done with his PhD. His future goal would be to be able to create a foundation for purchasing research, where the dream would be to fund two PhD students, two postdocs and an associate professor or professor so there would be a research team of a critical mass. His idea would then be to continue in the academic world, but not necessarily to pursue a classic academic career, but in some way contribute to research.

"To achieve something like that would be amazing. But for now, I will take it one year at a time, focus on my thesis and spread the word about the possibilities for sustainability within research", says Sven-Anders.