Graduate Institute alumnus Christian Leffler, Deputy Secretary General for Economic and Global Issues at the European External Action Service, has told us how his studies equipped him for a career in diplomacy.

Mr Leffler, who studied for a PhD in Political Science at the Graduate Institute, joined the Swedish Foreign Service in 1980, before moving to the European Commission in 1996.

“I came to Geneva after having studied in the Anglo-Saxon world. The Graduate Institute has an international outlook, with links across the Atlantic and elsewhere, but rooted in a continental European academic tradition. Being here gave me a new perspective. I appreciated the international student body and the many opportunities for freewheeling, speculative discussions.”

“What I liked at the Institute was the inter-disciplinary approach, looking at international relations through a political lens, an economic lens, a legal lens, a historical lens. That’s good for preparing you for real-life approaches to international affairs, and it opened the doors for me to diplomatic service.”

You can view our clip with Christian Leffler below.