New funding for the institute from BUA

The project "GlobalResist - Forecasting antibiotic resistance evolution - a new approach to address a major issue in global health", with participation of Ulrich Kertzscher was selected for funding by Berlin University Alliance (BUA).
Congratulations!

BUA funds four pioneering collaborative projects on global health

As part of the Grand Challenge Initiative Global Health, the Berlin University Alliance (BUA) is funding four innovative projects. They address the topics of mental health in cities, planetary health, preventive health care and migration, and antimicrobial resistance worldwide. The collaborative projects will be funded with a total of around 5.4 million euros for three years.

The four funded project:

Exploring and Designing Urban Density. Neurourbanism as a Novel Approach in Global Health
The research platform Neurourbanism explores how urban density affects the psyche of people. Based on a new cognitive-scientific theory of the urban, social, design and construction factors are investigated that influence the mental health of young people and people with a migration history in the city.

Re-Scaling Global Health. Human Health and Multispecies Cohabitation on an Urban Planet
The study of urban human-animal-environment relationships and how these influence the health of people in urban areas form the basis of this project. The manifold interrelationships between health, biodiversity and environmental pollution are investigated.

Exploring gender-specific determinants and contexts of migrant health from an integrated Global Health perspective
In the implementation of the right to health, migrant populations in Germany face numerous barriers and exclusion mechanisms of a social, cultural and structural nature. The project will examine health needs of different migrant groups, gender differences, and the dynamics of intersectional inequalities in Germany. Perspectives from potential countries of origin will be included to develop solutions.

GlobalResist – Forecasting antibiotic resistance evolution – a new approach to address a major issue in global health
Development of resistance to antimicrobial agents is one of the major challenges in the fight against infectious diseases. GlobalResist is developing a broad-based approach to predicting antibiotic resistance that closely links different disciplines. The aim is to enable the assessment of risks of resistance development before use in the future, in order to ideally avoid the resistance problem and use antibiotics more sustainably.

The ongoing Corona pandemic has once again highlighted the complexity of the challenges in the field of global health - and how important it is to explore joint solutions in cooperation between science and society. Societal challenges worldwide - the so-called Grand Challenges - can only be tackled in an interdisciplinary and interinstitutional manner and with participatory approaches. This goal is also being pursued by the alliance of Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Technische Universität Berlin and Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin. In its second Grand Challenge Initiative - after the Grand Challenge Initiative Social Cohesion - the Berlin Excellence Network is focusing on global health. The focus is on improving the health of all people worldwide.

Global Health encompasses health issues in a transnational and global perspective and focuses in particular on the interactions between globalization, health and factors that influence health. One focus is on reducing existing inequalities, for example by making health services equally accessible to all. The interrelationships between medical, social as well as cultural, political, economic and environmental factors influencing human health are to be better understood in order to arrive at shared knowledge for action and robust solutions. For this reason, questions and challenges in the field of global health affect a variety of other research areas in addition to the health sciences: from environmental and natural sciences to social sciences, law, religious studies, politics and philosophy.

"The response to the call for proposals was gratifyingly large. We received a large number of proposals on very different global health issues. The selected projects stand out above all for their future viability. This means that through their research they are developing long-term and sustainable solutions to urgent questions, for example in the field of antimicrobial resistance and in the field of coexistence in the big city," says Prof. Dr. Friedemann Paul, Vice Dean for Research with Clinical Focus at Charité, member of the steering committee for the Grand Challenge Initiatives and spokesperson for the Grand Challenge Initiative Global Health.

The funding of the research projects as so-called Exploration Projects aims to develop larger inter- and transdisciplinary collaborative research projects with non-scientific participation in Berlin in the long term. "Transdisciplinary research means that the projects conduct research together with non-scientific partners," explains Dr. Audrey Podann from the Technical University of Berlin, a member of the steering committee of the Fostering Knowledge Exchange section of the Excellence Network, adding, "Thus, actors from civil society, politics, business, and art and culture become part of the research, to which they contribute their knowledge and experience on an equal footing. Through this diversity of perspectives, new knowledge is created together with the researchers - an important prerequisite for developing robust solutions to global societal challenges." The Grand Challenge Initiative Global Health is accompanied by measures from the BUA Research Forums, which provide technical and methodological support for transdisciplinary collaboration.

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• Berlin University Alliance

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