Gerd Ahlström is a specialist in neurological nursing and has comprehensive experiences working with organizations for patients with long-term diseases. Over the years, she has been doing research with an interdisciplinary design using both quantitative and qualitative methods. She is PI of the project 'Implementation of Knowledge-Based Palliative Care in Nursing Homes' (KUPA) and has recently completed three projects on ageing and healthcare for older people with intellectual disability. The research has had a strong focus on the patient’s perspective but has expanded in the last twenty years to cover the next of kin’s and the staff’s perspectives. About twenty research projects have been completed where she was the Principal Investigator (PI) and has been the supervisor of 26 PhD students at several Swedish universities. Other examples of previous research programmes concern quality improvements and person-centred care. Ahlström has participated in the European project “WeDO — For the Wellbeing and Dignity of Older People” and has a long-lasting collaboration with Kunming Medical University in China. Professor Ahlström is a fellow of EANS (the European Academy of Nursing Science) and was engaged in the EANS projects “A review of European Nursing Research”. She has also been involved in the EC funded Leonardo da Vinci programme regarding specialist training in neuroscience. Furthermore, she has been building up several research groups in nursing and interdisciplinary research environments. The research environments she initiated and led was the construction of the Centre for Rehabilitation Research (1998–2003); the Research School Health, Care and Value; the School of Health Sciences (2006-2010); and the Jönköping Academy for Improvement of Health and Welfare (2008-2010). She was then Director of the Vardal Institute at Lund University until 2015.