The Willibald Gebhardt Institute (WGI) is an International Institute of Research and Knowledge Transfer in the fields of Sport and Sport Sciences. It was established as a non-governmental and non-profit institution at the city of Essen (Germany) on May 5th 1992. According to the constitution of the WGI its purpose is to support human tasks and social targets of physical activities including health-related fitness and ethical-morale principles in sport activities. This purpose is linked with a holistic approach of education for a well-rounded individual, particularly for children and adolescents in their main settings of living and development: in families, at schools, within sport clubs in the context of recreational and elite sports.
Karl August Willibald Gebhardt was born on January 17th, 1861 in Berlin and also died there on April 30th, 1921. He was a supporter of modern international Olympic games and founder of the Olympic movement in Germany, even though the modern international Olympic movement is most often only associated with Pierre de Coubertin.
Soichi Ichimura (Japan), long-time fellow at the Willibald Gebhardt Institute, has left us forever. The WGI, and Roland Naul in particular, enjoyed a decades-long friendship and connection with Soichi Ichimura. After completing his studies in psychology at the University of Illinois, USA, he became a university professor of sport psychology at the Institute of Sport Science at the internationally renowned ...
From June 29 to July 1, 2026, the Willibald Gebhardt Institute will host the CEREPS Summit 2026 at the Franz-Hitze-Haus in Münster. This event, in cooperation with CEREPS as a European research network ...
Dear members, dear affiliates and dear friends of the WGI, on November 19, 2025, we held WGI’s Annual General Assembly in the beautiful Luisensaal of Hotel Kaiserhof in Münster. The regular elections ...
The Willibald Gebhardt Institute (WGI), in collaboration with the Department of Physical Education and the Institute of Sport Science at Seoul National University (SNU), successfully co-hosted the 2025 ...