Background: The concept of sustainability suggests development should maintain protective environments for current and future generations. Healthcare practice and research within the Baltic Sea Region, and around the world, have not implemented sustainable development indicators to complement broader existing international goals. In the summer of 2019, European doctoral students attended the fourth annual Baltic Sea Region Network in Personalized Health Care summer school, themed ‘Environmental Sustainability of Healthcare Research’.

Aim: This critical reflection focuses on doctoral students’ discussions related to sustainable development in healthcare and science, exploring a shift in approach in the context of technology use and travel.

Conclusion: Doctoral students became self-aware and critical of current practices in healthcare and science in terms of sustainability. Existing goals for sustainable development have not been paired with clear indicators to guide clinical and academic practices.

Implications for practice:

• Incorporating collaboration and participation into healthcare and science cultures can promote sustainable innovation
• Research should be conducted to uncover the environmental and economic impacts of current practices in these fields
• Clinicians and health researchers should be given indicators of sustainable development in order to achieve existing sustainable development goals

This article by Jennifer N. Auxier, Henna-Riikka Hakojärvi, Abigail Kusi Amponsah, Angelika Schley, Linda Gaertner, Cecilia Haddad Ringborg and Suvi Sundgren is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 3.0 License.