After almost 35 years at the RUB and more than 20 years as Executive Director of the IEE, Dr Bäcker has left the IEE to take up her retirement.

Dr. Gabriele Bäcker joined the institute as a researcher at the end of 1991 and was awarded a Dr. rer. oec. (Doctor of Economics) in July 1996. She was part of the IEE Group, which designed and launched the Master’s programme in ‘Development Management’, which began in 2000 at the RUB and in 2002 at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa, the latter being supported by substantial DAAD funding. Before taking up the position of IEE’s Executive Director in 2005, Gabi – as she is known at the institute – coordinated the Master’s programme in Development Management in Bochum and Cape Town with great success. During the term of the DAAD-funded South African-German Centre for Development Research (SAGCDR, 2008 to 2023), she was a member of the SAGCDR Steering Committee and – between 2012 and her recent retirement – a member of the Executive Board of the UA Ruhr Graduate Centre for Development Studies. Since 2013, Dr Bäcker has played a key role in successfully securing funding for and leading complex EU-funded consortia and projects in which the IEE acted as coordinator (EUSA_ID, ADAPTED) or as a partner (EPE).

Over the past 35 years, Dr Bäcker has been a defining figure at the IEE, thanks to her ideas and initiatives, her leadership style, to her success in management, in securing external funding and building networks, and to her very own ‘Gabi style’.

We all – IEE’s Executive Board, staff and students – would like to thank her very much and wish her all the best for this new chapter in her life.