13.01.2026
Happy New Year! We hope everyone has had a restful break and you are ready to dive into 2026 - ASPHER’s 60th anniversary year! For our new year resolutions, the ASPHER office is aiming to bring you a weekly newsflash to keep you up to date on everything that is happening! Please reach out to the secretariat to learn more, get involved, and share your news. ASPHER 60TH ANNIVERSARY & MILAN2026 ASPHER 1st European Congress on Public Health Education and Training - Milan2026 Abstracts Submission and Registration are open for the ASPHER 1st European Congress on Public Health Education and Training! Make sure to be there! Submit your abstract and Register here! ASPHER 60th Anniversary Book - call for contributions As part of the 60th Anniversary year celebrations in Milan and under Prof Henrique Barros Presidency Agenda we will be presenting a special anniversary book with Member reflections on public health in their countries and the roles schools of public health have played. We’ve already received many expressions of interest - please be in touch with the secretariat to showcase your school’s perspective and the local/country context! Contact community@aspher.org to register your interest. MEMBER NEWS Let the ASPHER community know what is happening at your school! Send your news and events to lore.leighton@aspher.org. Center-School of Public Health at the Faculty of Medicine, Sts. Cyril and Methodius University: Public Health Forum - Celebrating 20 Years of Membership in ASPHER The Center–School of Public Health at the Faculty of Medicine, University Sts Cyril and Methodius in Skopje hosted a Public Health Forum on December 15, 2025, in the amphitheater of the Faculty of Medicine, marking the 20th anniversary of its membership in ASPHER. Participants adopted the Public Health Declaration 2026–2035, outlining key principles and priorities for the next decade for both the Teaching-Scientific Council for Public Health and the Center–School of Public Health. Read more here. Faculty of Public Health, Al-Quds University: FPH-Gaza branch has resumed the educational process and successfully held its first in-person exam The Faculty of Public Health - Gaza branch of Al-Quds University conducted the in-person Biostatistics exam at our temporary rented site, following the destruction of our previous building. This marks the first on-campus exam since the outbreak of the war on the Gaza Strip, reflecting our determination to sustain education and revive face-to-face learning despite ongoing challenges. The exam was supervised by Professor Bassam Abu Hamad, Director General of Programs at the Gaza Branch, with close follow-up from both academic and administrative staff. Read more here. Angela Boškin Faculty of Health Care: 19th international scientific conference: Stable and accessible healthcare systems in times of resource scarcity - call for abstracts We are pleased to invite you to submit abstracts (deadline 27 January) and later scientific papers in the fields of health and social care for the 19th international scientific conference: Stable and accessible healthcare systems in times of resource scarcity. The conference will be held in Bled, Slovenia on June 4th, 2026 to develop discussions on creating and consolidating conditions for the stability and accessibility of health systems in times of resource scarcity. Read more here. NEW AND NOTEWORTHY ASPHER Survey consultation on Climate & Health needs for sub-national policymakers As part of a capacity building project with the European Climate and Health Observatory, ASPHER has developed a survey to analyse gaps and training needs in climate-health topics among decision makers responsible for climate change adaptation at the sub-national level.If you have local municipal and regional contacts, we need your help - we have a ready to go dissemination message. Time is of the essence to spread this widely and quickly! Contact lore.leighton@aspher.org if you can help out. Call for European Climate and Health Community of Practice (CoP) Facilitation Lead and faculty member participants GNAPH and GCCHE are teaming up to develop CoPs in Climate Change and Health Education for the Regional Public Health Schools' Associations. ASPHER is calling for applicants for a CoP Facilitation lead for Europe and expressions of interest from faculty and teaching staff from ASPHER member institutions wishing to take part in the European CoP. Learn more here and contact lore.leighton@aspher.org to register your interest. Riegelman GNAPH Fellowship: (Deadline 9 January 2026) GNAPH is seeking a part-time, early-career professional to function as a Riegelman GNAPH Fellow for one year to help shape and advance GNAPH’s plan of action. This fully remote, paid position offers an opportunity to work with academic public health experts across regions to advance a unique and multifaceted agenda. Learn more and apply here.
08.01.2026
Another eventful year has passed – before the new year we’d like to send our greetings to members with highlights from 2025 while also looking ahead to what is in store for 2026! Deans’ & Directors’ Retreat 2025 & 2026 / 1st European Congress on Education and Training in Public Health The Annual Deans’ & Directors’ Retreat is always the high point of the ASPHER calendar and we were pleased to meet up with members this year in Berlin with tremendous thanks everyone who attended and participated, and to our wonderful hosts at the Berlin School of Public Health. The 2025 General Assembly witnessed the election of Prof Mary Codd, University College Dublin as future President of ASPHER. She will take the lead in July 2026, which coincides nicely with the Irish EU Presidency – we’ll be seeking for synergies! Alongside Mary, we welcomed two new Members of the Board: Prof Oleg Lozan, School of Public Health Management, Republic of Moldova, and Prof Judit Simon, Medical University of Vienna, Austria; and Prof Polychronis Kostoulas, University of Thessaly, Greece is back for a second term. The Deans’ & Directors’ Retreat has been growing each year – listening to ASPHER members’ concerns, President Henrique Barros saw a unique opportunity under his Presidency Agenda and building on the momentum of ASPHER’s 60th Anniversary to fill a gap in the Europe-level discussions on strengthening the capacity and quality of public health education and training. ASPHER is thrilled to launch the 1st European Congress on Education and Training in Public Health in Milan from 15-18 July 2026. Hosted by four Lombardy Region ASPHER Members, the Congress will incorporate the 2026 ASPHER Deans’ & Directors’ Retreat and celebrate ASPHER’s 60th Anniversary. The event will follow on the Milan Winter Olympics, in the heart of this green city on the Polytechnic of Milan campus – offering an authentic public health experience underscoring the field’s inherent multidisciplinarity, cross-sectorality, and interprofessionality! Registration and Call for Abstracts for Milan 2026 are already open at https://milan2026.aspher.org. ASSETS 2025 & 2026 The Annual ASSETS Public Health Mentoring Summer School moved to Croatia in 2025, warmly hosted by former ASPHER Executive Board Member Mirjana Kujundžić Tiljak, Director – Andrija Štampar School of Public Health, University of Zagreb School of Medicine. We congratulate Mirjana on being re-elected for another term as Director and are grateful to Andrija Štampar SPH’s continuing commitment to engage with ASPHER’s next generation agenda as host of ASSETS 2026 – building on past experience and grow the format to make ASSETS more relevant and unforgettable than ever! The opportunity for a select group of early career public health professionals to spend an intensive week with dedicated ASSETS faculty mentors and guests in Zagreb will be available during the week of 06 July 2026 — bridging the gap between EuroPubHealth+ programme graduation week in Rennes and the ASPHER Milan 2026 Congress. Stay posted for more! Public Health Diplomacy Agenda for an Age of Populism Teaming up with ASPPH our sister organisation in North America, ASPHER has launched an ambitious agenda in Public Health Diplomacy. The agenda builds on work initiated by Dean Ashish Joshi at University of Memphis with ASPHER Executive Board Member Ramune Kalediene, Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, leading for ASPHER. Following up on the initiative’s introduction during the Berlin D&D;, ASPHER together with ASPPH held a series of events during this year’s European Health Forum Gastein in October, including a High-level Stakeholder Lunch Session, Young Forum Gastein Skills Building Session and a Conference Fishbowl Session (watch the recording here). This was the first time that schools of public health hosted a session at EHFG – showcasing how much we can accomplish when we join forces! Prof Martin McKee, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, was integral to the EHFG success as moderator of the main session and driver in contributing to the background Policy Brief that served to kick off the discussions during the EHFG events. The Brief is now published as An Agenda for Public Health Diplomacy in an Age of Populism offering a roadmap forward with nine ways to revitalise and future-proof public health diplomacy. A linked call for papers on the topic of Public Health Diplomacy in a Complex World is open in the journal Public Health Reviews – consider submitting your work! Watch that space and aspher.org for more to come! In outcomes from EHFG, we will be working with ASPHER member schools to initiate Public Health Diplomacy living laboratories to build capacity in Europe. After taking part in the session, EUPHA and IANPHI are stepping up to be a part of this important initiative – with schools, institutes and national networks combining forces. It is great to bring the Public Health community together when we are operating in an increasingly divided world. Setbacks for Public Health in 2025 We cannot send this message without acknowledging certain setbacks for Public Health in Europe and Globally in 2025. Dealing with these challenges has made the agenda on Public Health Diplomacy even more critical as we must make use of all channels to ensure that Public Health keeps a seat at the table with the World’s power brokers. The most visible on a global scope were the decision of the United States to withdraw from the WHO and cuts to global programmes such as USAID. ASPHER responded with a briefing paper on WHO’s Role in a Changing World, and joint action with EUPHA and WHO Europe to organise a webinar and EPH Helsinki Roundtable on protecting public health through global cooperation and advocacy. On the European level, Health NGO’s received a major blow when the European Commission suspended operating grants funding for civil society organisations holding Framework Partnership Agreements (FPAs) under the EU4Health Work Programme 2025–2026. Cuts of the operating grant funds were confirmed in July with release of the 2025 Work Programme. ASPHER is amongst the organisations affected, having secured an FPA under the call and a formal complaint has been filed to the European Ombudsman. Despite this, ASPHER has remained resilient having established an operational format which is not overly dependent on European Operating Funds. Through leadership from the Presidency to the operation level, ASPHER has built a strategy over the past years to prioritise a diversity of funding opportunities. This is thanks first and foremost to the indispensable contributions and engagement of our Members. You are ASPHER’s foundation! ASPHER 60th Anniversary in 2026! ASPHER will be turning 60 next year and we will be celebrating to showcase everything that schools of public health contribute to the health of Europe and the World! We are working on digitalising ASPHER historical archives, here is a teaser for a look back at the early years of the Association. Despite the challenges discussed above, ASPHER is resolute to boost organisational development and member communication as we build momentum towards the ASPHER 1st European Congress on Education and Training in Public Health! – see our previous message for more details including registration and call for abstracts. A key element will be the ASPHER 2030 Strategy, which we expect to adopt at the General Assembly in Milan. The Strategy will be grounded in feedback and evidence from the ASPHER member consultation conducted earlier this year — if by chance you missed responding to the consultation reach out to the Secretariat so we can still collect your input. Under Prof Henrique Barros’s Presidency Agenda, we will be asking Members for reflections on the history of Public Health in their countries and the part that schools of public health played in it. We’ll make this into a special anniversary book publication. We hope you will take the opportunity to showcase your local context – contact the Secretariat to participate! In 2026, we will be working to make the most of our strengthened partnerships. We continue to collaborate with WHO Europe on public health workforce professionalisation under the MoU signed in 2024. Public Mental Health is high on the WHO priorities – let us know if you want to get involved! ASPHER always works closely with EUPHA on multiple fronts, the collaboration was formalised with the signing of an MoU during the Berlin D&D.; Look for more exciting developments on this when we are back in January. Meanwhile, strong efforts continue at APHEA with the Agency’s revitalised leadership, opening up new possibilities for synergies and benefits to meet evolving education and training needs in public health. It is truly exciting to see APHEA steadily realizing its potential from global through regional to local relevance with system thinking and collaborative approaches! Increasing attention is given to the area of Migration and Public Health in line with the current Presidency priorities, the initiation of the new Migration Task Force and talks to formalise our partnership with IOM through an MoU. ASPHER’s Climate and Health agenda is going strong as recently communicated, with ongoing partnerships with ECHO and GCCHE. Under our current contract with the European Environment Agency, ASPHER is charged with analysing capacity building needs on climate change and health for local decision makers – please reach out to us if you have direct contacts in your cities and regions. And on the global level we are going strong through committed work together with ASPHER’s sister public health schools’ organisations under GNAPH! We look forward to celebrating 60 years of ASPHER with them when we head to the 18th World Congress on Public Health in South Africa in September under the GNAPH banner! Let’s get inspired to make 2026 better than ever as we celebrate 60 years of ASPHER together, building on our past for a brighter and healthier future! Member and Partner Opportunities Riegelman GNAPH Fellowship: (Deadline 9 January 2026) GNAPH is seeking a part-time, early-career professional to function as a Riegelman GNAPH Fellow for one year to help shape and advance GNAPH’s plan of action. This fully remote, paid position offers an opportunity to work with academic public health experts across regions to advance a unique and multifaceted agenda. Call for European Climate and Health Community of Practice (CoP) Facilitation Lead and faculty member participants: GNAPH and the GCCHE are teaming up to develop CoPs in Climate Change and Health Education for the Regional Public Health Schools' Associations. ASPHER is calling for applicants for a CoP Facilitation lead for Europe and expressions of interest from faculty and teaching staff from ASPHER institutions wishing to take part in the European CoP. Contact us to register your interest. 4th Annual RE-AIM Public Health IDEAS Hackathon: ASPHER Associate Member, the University of Memphis School of Public Health, has developed the RE-AIM Public Health IDEAS Hackathon series to sensitize youth to address public health challenges of the 21st century. The hackathon is open to all high school and public health students around the world. Learn more and register free here. ASPHER working groups and task forces expand member engagement with and contributions to the ASPHER agenda and it is expected they will continue to make an impact going forward. Contact the Secretariat for more information and to join in! Members, let us know what you are up to! Please be in touch with any activities or events where ASPHER could give a boost – let’s join together to make our 60 years shine! Reach out to lore.leighton@aspher.org to get engaged in ASPHER activities and to share your news for 2026 through ASPHER Channels! This season is a good moment to pause and reflect on the strength of our community. Thank you to all ASPHER Members and Partners for your ongoing engagement, collaboration and dedication to public health education and practice. Season's greetings, and best wishes for the year ahead. All the best, ASPHER Secretariat
30.09.2025
ASPHER is thrilled to welcome you to our new website! The goal of our newly designed site is to create a member driven ASPHER online community where individual users affiliated with ASPHER member institutions (schools leadership, faculty, students, alumni...) will be able to interact with each other, network and share their work, engage in Association's activities, and so much more – expanding together to unlock the ASPHER community’s full potential! We would like aspher.org to be a landing page each morning for members of the ASPHER community to share and learn about news relevant to their work. Our aim is to make the site a true focal point of their web presence within a trusted space of likeminded colleagues connected through ASPHER work and values. The direction of the website development is to create an online environment fully interoperable with members' digital identies across other professional, organisational and social media realms. Visitors are always welcome to the site, but in order to take full advantage of being part of the ASPHER community, please sign up for your individual account here. In order to sign up for an account you must be affiliated with an ASPHER member institution and your account must be verified. If you don’t find your institution on the current member list and you are affiliated with an institution involved in public health education and training, then you may want to encourage your institution to become a member of the Association. Contact us at community@aspher.org to learn more about how your institution can join ASPHER. The website design is meant to be as intuitive as possible for your user experience, but in order to discover all the functionalities a manual is needed. The office is hard at work developing a user manual to be available soon. Moving archived content from the previous ASPHER website is also a work in process. We will be steadily updating the current page as well as digitizing historically important paper documents in time for 60th anniversary celebrations in 2026. This is only the beginning! We are planning to enrich the web community further over the coming months, adding hub functionalities for additional interaction and sharing to include: Public Health Training Hub bringing together available education and training offers, pool of experts and trainers, and competency-based curriculum creation toolkit. Public Health Practical Knowledge & Engagement Hub to support projects implementation including bringing together partners for bids and joint publication efforts, community outreach and a good practice repository. Public Health Career Development & Advancement Hub including system capacity and individual career planning toolkit, guidance for funding and employment opportunities. We hope you will be as excited as we are to build closer community at aspher.org! If you have questions, ideas or feedback, please contact us through the feedback form on the homepage.
29.09.2025
ASPHER recently participated at the European Health Forum Gastein (EHFG) where we brought Schools of Public Health to the table with a series of events on Public Health Diplomacy in partnership with the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health (ASPPH). Urgent global health threats must be tackled through increased collaboration, coordination, cooperation and communication across multiple stakeholders. Policy makers, practitioners and scholars have increasingly recognised the importance of health in relation to other political issues such as trade, security, equity, development, and human rights. However, in the current environment, good health and well-being has been challenged due to increased geopolitical tensions and a rise in nationalism, fuelling competitiveness rather than cooperativeness. Countries need to design and negotiate frameworks and agreements that can address global health challenges in a collective manner. The regional Schools of Public Health associations, ASPHER and ASPPH, are working toward meaningful and bold solutions to prepare a cadre of committed Public Health Diplomats, facilitating data driven dialogue, evidence-informed communications and implement training programmes in a complex environment. Schools of Public Health must be ready to take responsibility and build needed capacity! Events at EHFG included a Young Forum Gastein Skills Building Workshop, a lunch with high-level stakeholders, and a lively fishbowl discussion as part of the Main Conference: Public health diplomacy - Cooperativeness and collaboration vs disagreement and division. Watch the session recording here. Participants at EHFG debated a background policy brief (McKee M, et al. Public Health Reviews, 2025, in press) that will soon be available through a special collection on Public Health Diplomacy in a Complex World in the journal Public Health Reviews edited by Ashish Joshi (ASPPH) and Ramune Kalediene (ASPHER). If you have something to contribute to the topic consider submitting your manuscript to the call for papers! As a priority of the Presidency of Henrique Barros, ASPHER under the leadership of Ramune Kaldeine is taking the work forward to establish Public Health Diplomacy living labs in Europe while engaging other key stakeholders to build momentum. Stay tuned for the ASPHER/ASPPH/EHFG outcome statement and much more!
29.09.2025
ASPHER congratulates our 2025 Award winners! Prof. Dr. med. Reinhard Busse, MPH FFPH ASPHER Andrija Štampar Medallist 2025 Professor Reinhard Busse is the head of the Department of Health Care Management in the Faculty of Economics and Management at the Berlin University of Technology. He is also a faculty member of The Charité, Berlin's university hospital, is Associate Head of Research Policy and head of the Berlin hub of the European Health Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, is a member of several scientific advisory boards, as well as a regular consultant for the WHO, the EU Commission, the World Bank, OECD and other international organizations within Europe and beyond, in addition to national health and research institutions. His research focuses on the methods and contents of comparative health system analysis (with a particular emphasis on reforms in Germany, the social health insurance of other countries including those in Central and Eastern Europe, the role of the EU, financing and payment mechanisms, and disease management), health services research and health economics including cost-effectiveness analyses, and health technology assessment (HTA). His department has been designated as a WHO Collaborating Centre for Health Systems Research and Management. He is the director of the annual Observatory's summer school in Venice and was the coordinator of the EU-funded project "EuroDRG: Diagnosis-Related Groups in Europe: towards Efficiency and Quality" (2009-2011). He has been Editor-in-Chief of the international peer reviewed journal Health Policy since 2011. Professor Busse studied medicine in Marburg (Germany), Boston (USA), and London (UK), as well as public health in Hannover (Germany). Prof. Dr. Oliver Razum, University of Bielefeld, Germany ASPHER Research Excellence Award 2025 Professor Razum’s research is focussed primarily on social epidemiology and migration and health. With over 750 publications , a h-index of 48 and more than 11,500 citations, he has published extensively on a vast array of topics. He has been a leading expert on research in migrant health in Germany for the past 20 years, including being the lead author of the first national report on migrant health. He has researched the health of refugees, asylum seekers and international migrant workers in which he is a leading international figure. His areas of interest include screening and access barriers to health care. In recent years he has also spoken out and published extensively on the public health impacts of conflict and war. Department of Public Health and Community Medicine, Medical University Gdansk ASPHER Teaching and Practice Excellence Award 2025 The Department of Public Health and Community Medicine is located at the Faculty of Health Sciences of the Medical University of Gdansk (GUMed). The Department conducts scientific and didactic activities in the field of public health and organises public health classes for the majority of faculties conducted at the University. The Department is also the initiator and creator of the public health courses (undergraduate and postgraduate studies), whose students learn about the full spectrum of topics covered by public health. Academic staff continuously improve their competences through participation in further education courses offered at the University, as well as in external courses. The Department innovates and continuously modifies teaching content and teaching methods. For several years, an internal system of teaching evaluation has been in place, as well as methods to activate students. Between 2022 and 2025, the Medical University of Gdansk implemented activities in teaching and practice of public health in the face of new challenges such as the war in Ukraine, the “new reality” and mental health. The Department also implemented a succussful NAWA project from September 2022 to July 2024, entitled “Improving public health education in response to pandemic and post-pandemic challenges”, which had the highest impact on the further activities undertaken by the Department and its recognition. The long-term effects of the cooperation are the internationalisation of the unit and lasting relations with the Partners, enabling the creation of further projects in the area of science and teaching. ASPHER Early Career Excellence Awards 2025: Rami H. Al-Rifai, United Arab Emirates Beate Jahn, Austria Jwenish Kumawat, Ireland Pier Mario Perrone, Italy Anna Tyranska-Fobke, Poland
29.09.2025
The ASPHER Secretariat is delighted to announce the outcome of the recent election process at the ASPHER Annual General Assembly (AGA) 2025 in Berlin which took place at the Charité Campus Mitte on 25 June ahead of the ASPHER 2025 Deans' & Directors' Retreat at Berlin School of Public Health. ASPHER Presidency election Prof. Mary Codd has been elected as President-elect for the 2025–2026 term. Prof. Codd will assume the office of ASPHER President for the 2026–2028 term. In addition, Prof. Nadav Davidovitch has been proposed for election as President-elect for the 2027–2028 term, to take up the office of President for the 2028-2030 term, subject to ratification of his candidature by the ASPHER Membership at the AGA 2027. We warmly congratulate Prof. Mary Codd on her election to the Presidency of ASPHER, and acknowledge Prof. Nadav Davidovitch's candidacy for election in 2027. We look forward to their continued contributions to ASPHER's mission and values. ASPHER Executive Board election Prof. Polychronis Kostoulas, University of Thessaly, Greece was elected for his second term in the ASPHER Executive Board. Prof. Oleg Lozan, School of Public Health Management, Republic of Moldova; and Prof. Judit Simon, Medical University of Vienna, Austria were elected for their first terms in the ASPHER Executive Board. We congratulate and enthusiastically welcome the new and returning members of the ASPHER Executive Board. We look forward to working productively with the Board to continue to strengthen ASPHER, its members, and the contributions of the public health education and training to improving and protecting the public's health.
24.03.2025
The Congress will incorporate the 2026 Deans' & Directors' Retreat and will be the highlight of ASPHER's 60th Anniversary celebrations! For six decades, the Association of Schools of Public Health in the European Region (ASPHER) has stood at the centre of public health education and training in Europe. It has guided generations of leaders, academics, and practitioners, nurturing the discipline’s intellectual and institutional foundations. Throughout this history, the ASPHER Deans and Directors Retreat has served as a unique platform for reflection, exchange, and collective vision-building among heads of schools and programmes of public health. For this 60th Anniversary year, ASPHER will convene the 1st European Congress on Education and Training in Public Health stemming from this strong tradition. It aims to build upon and expand ASPHER’s long-standing mission: to strengthen the capacity and quality of public health education and to ensure that future generations of professionals are prepared to face evolving challenges. The initiative represents a natural evolution in ASPHER’s trajectory, translating its accumulated experience and thought leadership into a larger, more visible European framework. Members who would like to learn more about getting involved can contact us at community@aspher.org. We'll be happy to meet over zoom. Sign up with your email at the Congress website: Milan2026.ASPHER.org. The call for abstracts and registration will launch in December 2025. The Congress will welcome all to join, but there will be exciting advantages for our members. If your institution is not yet an ASPHER member, contact us to learn how to join so you don't miss out! Please share this announcement widely!