Graduate School of International Public Health

News

Proposal not accepted in the final round, but stay tuned ...

Bad news: The GRIPH proposal was presented to the DFG and their reviewers. We received the summary of the very detailed review by the DFG which contained a lot of praise for innovation, relevance of the topic, teaching concept and the commitment of PIs, but gave essentially two reasons for recjection:

the difficulty to raise tuition in the current political landscape in Germany

many of the PIs were not seen as having primarily a public health record

Both points are correct, but we like to see these as challenges that need to be overcome and tackled rather than as barriers.

Good news: The Steering committee unanimously voted to continue the GRIPH project with different funding sources and with a smaller scope. This decision has the full support of the University and the Ministry of Science in Stuttgart, which is planning to provide seed funds for proposal writing. We will update you on this website regarding the format and focus of the GRIPH prime proposal. The process of establishing an inter-faculty Ph.D. program in "international Public Health" as stipulated in the GRIPH proposal is on its way through the university decision-making bodies.

Key message: With this activity we hope to be prepared for a widely anticipated 2nd round of the Excellence Initiative in 5 years.