Prof. Dr. Eva-Maria Wild moves to the University of SiegenA personal letter: Thank you and goodbye

2 April 2025

Photo: Achenbach

A look back at my time as a student, exciting research topics, and collegiality at the University of Hamburg Business School.

Prof. Dr. Eva Wild, previously assistant professor of business administration, business economics, and healthcare management at the University of Hamburg Business School, has accepted a position at the University of Siegen, effective April 1, 2025. There, she will take over the W3 professorship for healthcare management and health economics at the Faculty of Economics, Business Informatics, and Business Law at the School of Economic Disciplines. In a personal letter, she looks back on 14 years at the University of Hamburg Business School and shares her plans for the future.

When I look back...

I look back on an exciting professional and personal journey of development at the University of Hamburg. This began with my master's degree in Business Administration (M.Sc.) (2011-2013) and subsequent doctorate (2013-2016) in Healthcare Management at the HCHE/Business School (Prof. Dr. Schreyögg). After a short postdoctoral period, I was appointed to the junior professorship in Business Administration, specializing in Healthcare Management, at the beginning of 2018.

Fourteen years of academic career at the University of Hamburg—with brief stints in the US and as a visiting professor at the University of Augsburg: These were very valuable 14 years for me, filled with exciting research projects, courses, and wonderful colleagues at HCHE and the Business School. I am grateful for the excellent conditions that offered me a lot of support and, at the same time, freedom for my research and teaching. In my research, I dealt with various issues in the areas of strategic hospital management and health economic evaluation in the field of new (digital) intersectoral forms of care: “How can the shortage of skilled workers in hospitals be counteracted?” or “Which new care services really help in everyday life and are they also economically viable?” My passion projects were and still are the evaluation of the health kiosk in Billstedt/Horn as a prototype for integrated comprehensive healthcare in socially disadvantaged metropolitan regions and the evaluation of the “Arbeiten 5.0” project on new working models for nursing care in collaboration with the UKE. I have always geared my research portfolio towards existing research gaps and current challenges in the healthcare market. Here, I am very grateful for the excellent funding opportunities provided by the University of Hamburg, such as funds from the Ideas and Risk Fund or the Transfer Fund, which, for example, supported the project “FitnesspilotKIDZ – an app to fight the obesity pandemic,” a transfer project with diventio GmbH. This is an app that helps children and young people combat overweight and obesity or prevent it from occurring in the first place.

When I look ahead...

... I am looking forward to the new challenges, opportunities, and colleagues at the Faculty of Economics, Business Informatics, and Business Law at the School of Economic Disciplines at the University of Siegen. There, I will be working in depth on the development and evaluation of digitally networked, intersectoral care models and the link between sustainability and digitalization in healthcare. My vision for my research in Siegen is to find and evaluate digital approaches for optimizing health promotion and care. To this end, I would like to develop and apply methodologically innovative health economic evaluation approaches. My goal is to provide the best possible data-based decision support for the distribution of scarce resources in our healthcare system and thus contribute to future-oriented healthcare.

There are exciting research opportunities in this area at the Digital Model Region Health Dreiländereck (DMGD) in Siegen. I would also like to expand my profile to include research in the field of sustainability in healthcare. I am looking forward to working with colleagues to establish a cross-faculty research center in the field of health and to develop and implement innovative research projects, excellent teaching, and effective transfer activities.

As I continue on my journey, I would like to pass on the valuable experience, skills, and resources I have gained at the University of Hamburg in the spirit of the “pay it forward” principle, thereby further scaling my sphere of influence.

I would like to say THANK YOU for my time at the Business School. I have always felt very comfortable here, both professionally and personally, and have always been able to identify with the vision, mission, and values. I particularly appreciate the pursuit of continuous development and excellence in education, teaching, and research. This certainly led to intense discussions and debates at times. I always found it beneficial and important that there was no hesitation to engage in these debates and develop constructive solutions that brought us closer to our shared vision and mission. These intense discussions were important for critically reflecting on our strategy, keeping everyone on board, and continuing to grow together. One strong result of this is certainly the successful EQUIS certification (thanks again to Karen Gedenk, Henrik Sattler, and Matt Fennessy). I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the administration for their consistently excellent support. I would particularly like to thank my (former) colleagues at HCHE for 14 years of unique, inspiring, motivating, and extremely successful collaboration. I am sure we will stay in touch.

With this in mind, “See you again in Hamburg, Siegen, and the world!”