Research Training Group
Managerial and economic dimensions of health care quality
The Research Training Group “Managerial and economic dimensions of health care quality” is a structured PhD program in health economics (a so called Graduiertenkolleg (GRK)) funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG).
Our programme will enable PhD students with a background in economics, business administration or closely related fields to do research on how to influence the quality of health care in various settings using very large data sets that have only recently become available.
Research visits
The doctoral students of the research training group can work on their research topic abroad for several months, in collaboration with international health economists.
Robert Wittram
From April to July 2026, Robert is planning a three-month research stay at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden. He will be hosted by the Health Economics and Economic Evaluation Group under the supervision of Prof. Niklas Zethraeus. His research will focus on economic modelling of pancreatic cancer early detection.
Lara Lenz
From April to July 2026, Lara will be a guest at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. Together with Professor David Kealy from the Department of Psychiatry, she will work on her projects on patient preferences in mental health care.
Stefanos Boudouroglou-Walter
Since April 2026, Stefanos has been spending three months at Stanford University and the Health Inequality Lab as a guest of Marcella Alsan, the Annie and Ned Lamont Professor of International Studies. His research focuses on evaluating the impact of prescribing guidelines on the treatment of psoriasis
Michael Möller
From April to June, Michael will be a visiting scholar at the University of Washington in Seattle. At the Comparative Health Outcomes, Policy, and Economics (CHOICE) Institute, he is collaborating with Prof. Noémi Kreif on the evaluation of an integrated healthcare initiative. The focus is on estimating heterogeneous treatment effects using causal methods and machine learning.
Lasse Falk
Lasse Falk was at the SDA Bocconi School of Management in Milan in January and March 2026, where he worked together with Prof. Dr. Oriana Ciani on his paper.
Janice Schönfeld
From September to November 2025, Janice was a guest at the Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary, in Canada. At the Chair of Insurance & Risk Management held by Prof. Dr. Anne Kleffner, she worked on her project on the health insurance market in North America.
Julius Herzig
From September to December 2025, Julius Herzig was a guest at the University of California in San Diego with Suhas Vijaykumar, Assistant Professor of Economics. There, he worked on his research project. The focus is on the share of individuals who benefit from interventions in randomized controlled trials (RCTs).
Malte Scheebaum
From February to March 2026, Malte will be at ESCP Business School in Paris, France. The stay is in collaboration with Associate Professor Wanda Mimra from the Department of Law, Economics & Humanities. The focus will be on modeling equilibria in health insurance markets.
Lena Imhof
From January to February 2026, Lena will be a visiting scholar at the University of Cape Town's School of Public Health under Dr. Lucy Cunnama. While there, she will work on a research project on continuity of care in cardiology.
Malin Hüllemann
In September 2025, Malin Hüllemann spend a two-week research stay at the University of St. Gallen at the Chair of Healthcare Management. There, she collaborated with the research group “Value in Healthcare” led by Dr. David Ehlig. During her stay, she participated in the Research Seminar, gaining insights into ongoing research projects and receiving feedback on her own research.
Benedikt Langenbeck
From February to the beginning of May 2025, he conducts research at the Macquarie University Centre for the Health Economy in Sydney at the chair of Prof. Yuanyuan Gu. He presented the results of his project “Impact of Surgical Experience on the Quality of Care: Learning-by-Doing in Cardiac Surgery”.
Lea Bullenkamp
From March to May 2025, Lea was a visiting researcher at GATE (Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique) in Lyon (France). While there, she l worked with Research Professor Izabela Jelovac. She also had the opportunity to present her research project in a research seminar and to take a course for doctoral students.
Julia von Hanxleden
During her stay at Kyoto University in Japan from March to June 2025, Julia worked with Prof. Yuichi Imanaka from the Department of Healthcare Economics and Quality Management. She also planned to present the results of her experiment on the relationship between intrinsic motivation, altruism and the quality of care under different compensation systems.
Isadora Mathevet
From January 31 to February 28, 2025, Isadora conducted research at the KU Leuven, Belgium. There she worked together with Associate Professor Edoardo Ciscato on the paper: “In sickness and in health: The role of assortative matching for spousal health dynamics”.
Carolin Brinkmann
For the final project of her dissertation, Carolin Brinkmann attended the Erasmus School of Health Policy & Management in Rotterdam between August and October 2024. The project compares two theories of well-being with regard to the implications for health policy decisions.
Beke Hester
In October 2025 Beke Hester visited the School of Medicine and Population Health at the University of Sheffield, England. She presented her project "Development of a Patient-Benefit-Index for Patients with Post-COVID (PBI-PoCO)" and had the opportunity to exchange ideas with researchers from the Health Outcomes Research Group
