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Prof. Dr. rer. medic. habil. Martina Hasseler is a  health care, nursing carwe. and rehabilitation scientist whose work focuses on improving the quality and equity of health and nursing care for vulnerable populations across settings and sectors. She combines long-standing academic leadership with extensive experience in externally funded research and evidence-informed policy consulting at regional, national and international level.

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Scientific profile and areas of expertise

Her scholarly work is rooted in health services research with a particular emphasis on the health and nursing care of vulnerable population groups, including older people, persons with disabilities and individuals with chronic conditions such as multiple sclerosis. Central thematic lines include coordination and integration of care, interprofessional health care delivery, digital transformation in nursing and health care, as well as quality development and patient safety. A further focus lies on prevention, health promotion and rehabilitation in nursing and community-based settings.

Her academic trajectory integrates clinical nursing experience, studies in health sciences, theology and vocational and business education, and advanced training in nursing science and rehabilitation sciences, culminating in a PhD on postnatal care concepts and a habilitation on people with disabilities as a vulnerable group in health and nursing care. She has held professorships in gerontological nursing, health sciences and rehabilitation, and since 2019 holds a professorship for clinical nursing at Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences, Faculty of Health, where she also serves in faculty leadership and curriculum development.

Leadership in third-party funded research

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Prof. Hasseler has extensive experience in the acquisition, scientific direction and implementation of competitively funded research projects at national and European level. She has successfully attracted substantial third-party funding, including multi-million-euro grants for projects on transitional care in hospitals and patient-oriented provision of aids and services for people with multiple sclerosis, thereby strengthening evidence-based care pathways for chronically ill and functionally impaired populations. Her portfolio encompasses intervention and implementation studies in long-term care and community health, mixed-methods health services research, and evaluations of innovative care models, often with a strong digital or technology-assisted component (e.g. digital tools in long-term care, robotics-supported care).

In these projects she typically assumes overall scientific responsibility, coordinates multi-professional consortia, and leads the conceptual design, methodological planning and supervision of data collection and analysis. She has also initiated and led projects on gender-sensitive and inequality-sensitive care, on delegation and task-shifting models, and on the development and evaluation of educational innovations in health and nursing science. Her work has been recognised with the Lower Saxony Science Award, underlining her role as an impulse-giver for the further development of nursing science and the professionalisation of the nursing workforce.

International cooperation and policy engagement

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Prof. Hasseler maintains a broad network of international collaborations, reflected in research and study stays in India, Australia, the United Kingdom and Scandinavian countries, as well as project-based cooperation with European partners in digital health and vocational education (e.g. the transnational NursingAI project with partners from the Netherlands and Hungary). She contributes to international discourses on health inequalities, long-term care and digital competencies in health professions, for example through her involvement in EU-funded initiatives to map and strengthen digital skills in the health workforce. As internationalisation officer at the Faculty of Health at Ostfalia, she fosters cross-border teaching and research collaborations and supports mobility and joint curriculum development.

Beyond academia, she is regularly involved as an expert and reviewer for ministries, parliamentary committees and professional organisations, contributing scientific evidence to policy processes in the fields of health workforce development, long-term care, and the governance of quality and equity in health systems. Her expertise is frequently requested in public debates on structural reform of the German health system, the status and competencies of nursing professionals and the implementation of advanced practice roles, underlining her function as a bridge between research, practice and health policy.

Teaching, supervision and capacity building

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In teaching, Prof. Hasseler covers a broad spectrum of health and nursing science, including health services research, gerontological nursing, rehabilitation, digital health and quality management, in bachelor’s, master’s and continuing education programmes. She has played a leading role in the design and implementation of innovative degree programmes and certificates in health and nursing sciences, with a strong focus on community health nursing, interprofessional collaboration and the reduction of health inequalities. Her supervision portfolio includes numerous bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral theses, many of which are embedded in third-party funded projects and practice partnerships.

Through her teaching, mentoring and project work, she contributes significantly to capacity building in health inequality monitoring, evidence-based nursing and community-oriented care, both in academic and practice contexts. In combination, her profile demonstrates consolidated competence in science, research and teaching, a strong track record in third-party funding and project leadership, and a clear commitment to translating research into practice and policy to improve health and nursing care for vulnerable populations.

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Prof. Dr. rer. medic. habil. Martina Hasseler has a long-standing and substantial track record in acquiring and leading competitively funded research projects at national and European level. Her third-party funded portfolio covers health services research, long-term care, digital transformation, educational innovation and the reduction of health and social inequalities in health and nursing care.

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Major current and recent projects

• NUTRI-SENSE – Digitally supported diversity and culturally sensitive nursing care on nutritional intake (2025–2029): Joint project coordinated by Prof. Hasseler (Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences) with partners at Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg and OFFIS. Funded by the programme „zukunft.niedersachsen“ of the Ministry for Science and Culture of Lower Saxony and the VolkswagenStiftung, the project develops and evaluates digitally supported, diversity-sensitive nutritional care concepts for older and care-dependent people.

• Needs-based health and nursing care for homeless people in Gifhorn (2025–2027): Externally funded by Diakonie Niedersachsen, this project extends Prof. Hasseler’s line of research on vulnerable and marginalised populations by analysing access barriers, care pathways and the development of low-threshold, intersectoral models of care for people experiencing homelessness.​

• DigiHealth (2024–2026): Erasmus+ funded consortium project on the digital competencies of care assistants, in which Prof. Hasseler’s team contributes expertise in nursing education, digital health and curriculum development. The project maps digital skill gaps and develops European training modules to strengthen the digital readiness of the care workforce.​

• PatoHV-BuDf-MS – Patient-oriented provision of aids and devices for bladder and bowel dysfunction in people with multiple sclerosis (2024–2026): Innovation Fund project under §92a SGB V (funding code 01VSF23034) with Prof. Hasseler as consortium partner alongside the Bavarian Hospital Association, German Hospital Institute, statutory health insurers and provider organisations. The project aims to optimise indication, provision and evaluation of assistive devices for people with MS by combining routine data, clinical expertise and patient-reported outcomes.

• Digitalisation and participatory organisational development for school and workplace-based teaching staff in nursing schools (2023–2025): Funded by the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB), this project develops further education concepts and participatory change processes to support digital transformation in nursing education institutions.

• SoHeRev – Social and health inequalities in health care among the very old (2022–2023): RKI-funded scoping review on inequalities in health and nursing care among the oldest-old, building the evidence base for targeted interventions and monitoring approaches.​

• Young-D (2022–2024): Erasmus+ project on knowledge transfer about a psychosocial intervention for young adults, in which Prof. Hasseler participates as project partner with a focus on health and social care interfaces.​

Innovationsfonds and large-scale projects

A particular hallmark of Prof. Hasseler’s funding profile are Innovation Fund projects and other large-scale consortia that combine health services research, digitalisation and organisational development.

• ÜberPflege – „Pflegezentrierte Übergangspflege im Krankenhaus“ (2023–ongoing): Innovation Fund project on nursing-centred transitional care in hospitals, with Prof. Hasseler as overall project lead. The consortium includes the German Hospital Institute, the Bavarian Hospital Association, AOK Bayern, BARMER, several hospitals and civil society partners, and investigates how structured, nursing-led transitional care can improve continuity and outcomes, particularly for vulnerable patient groups.

• Novelle – Sectors-crossing and integrated emergency and advance care planning for the last phase of life in long-term care (2019–2023): Innovation Fund project with Prof. Hasseler as consortium lead, partnering with the Institute for the History and Ethics of Medicine (University of Heidelberg), the German University of Administrative Sciences Speyer, AOK Niedersachsen, general practice institutes and municipal actors. The project developed and evaluated an integrated model for emergency management and advance care planning in nursing homes, bridging health, social care and municipal structures.​

• QMPR – Quality measurement in nursing using routine data (2019–2021): Innovation Fund project led by the Scientific Institute of AOK (WIdO), with Prof. Hasseler as consortium partner. The project explored the potential of routine data for quality monitoring in long-term care and contributed to the methodological and conceptual debate on quality indicators in German nursing care.

Across these and other projects, Prof. Hasseler has attracted substantial funding volumes; for example, she secured a total of 2.9 million euros for the Innovation Fund projects on transitional care and MS-related assistive device provision.

Digitalisation, education and capacity building projects

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Beyond health services and long-term care research, Prof. Hasseler leads and co-leads a range of projects on digitalisation and academic continuing education in nursing and health sciences.

• InWeit – Interprofessional continuing education programme „An invitation to the health professions“ (2020–2022): ESF-funded „Offene Hochschule“ project jointly led with Prof. Sandra Tschupke, developing interprofessional, flexible further education formats for health professionals.

• T-Nugd – Nursing goes digital (2020–2022): ESF-funded project focusing on digital competencies and blended learning formats in nursing and health programmes, co-led by Prof. Hasseler.​

• Digi-Train-NTS – „YouTube library“ for non-traditional students in nursing and health-related study programmes (2019–2021): ESF-funded project (Opening Universities) that developed an extensive digital training inventory for widening participation and supporting non-traditional students.​

• PuG – Development of part-time study programmes in nursing and health sciences (2014–2018 and 2018–2020): BMBF-funded joint projects („Aufstieg durch Bildung: offene Hochschulen“) with Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg, in which Prof. Hasseler led the Ostfalia subproject „Upgrade Applied Nursing Sciences B.Sc.“ (parts I and II). These projects significantly expanded academic pathways for nurses and allied health professionals through flexible, work-compatible degree programmes.

Methodological breadth and funding spectrum

Taken together, Prof. Hasseler’s third-party funded projects display a broad methodological spectrum, including mixed-methods health services research, intervention and implementation studies, scoping reviews, development and evaluation of assessment instruments, routine data analyses and digital education research. Funding sources span national research and innovation programmes (BMBF, Innovationsfonds des G-BA, EFRE, ESF, RKI, BIBB), foundations (VolkswagenStiftung) and European instruments (Erasmus+), as well as funding from church-based and welfare organisations such as Diakonie Niedersachsen.

Her consistent role as principal investigator, consortium lead or key partner in these projects underlines her proven competence in designing scientifically robust projects, acquiring competitive funding and managing complex, multi-stakeholder consortia in the fields of health and nursing science.