Robert Schleip

Robert Schleip (born 1954) is a German psychologist, human biologist and author, best known for his work in the field of fascia. He serves as the director of the Fascia Research Group, a research collaboration between the University of Ulm and the Technical University of Munich. Schleip is also the founding director of the Fascia Research Society, the research director of the European Rolfing Association and vice president of the Ida P. Rolf Research Foundation. He is involved in the alternative medicine field of rolfing.

Education In 1978, Schleip became Germany's first certified rolfer at the Rolf Institute and in 1983 became a Certified Advanced Rolfer in the field of Structural Integration.

Schleip graduated with a degree in psychology from Heidelberg University in 1980. From 1984 to 1987 he trained as a Feldenkrais teacher and became a Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner in the field of Sensorimotor Facilitation from the International Feldenkrais Guild in 1987.

In 2006, he earned his doctorate in human biology from the University of Ulm.

In 2023, he was appointed to a research professorship in the department for Health & Psychology for the university by the Diploma University of Applied Sciences.

Rolfing

Schleip has been a rolfing instructor since 1988 and maintains a part-time private practice in Munich.

In 2006, he became the research director of the European Rolfing Association. He also is vice president of Ida P. Rolf Research Foundation In 2013, he received the RISI Award for "Excellence in Research" by the Rolf Institute.

Fascia research

In 2007, Schleip along with Werner Klingler organized the first Fascia Research Congress, sponsored by the National Institute of Health and hosted at Harvard Medical School. The conference was covered in a two-page Science Magazine article titled "Cell Biology Meets Rolfing with a section titled "From Rolfer to Researcher" referring to Schleip's career shift. He has served on the scientific committee for all subsequent congresses (2009, 2012, 2015, 2018, 2022, 2025) and chaired the 2018 and 2022 congresses.

He was a founding member of the Fascia Research Society in 2011 and has served on the board of directors since 2020. In 2023 he received the designation of founding director.

Schleip is the director of the Fascia Research Group, a research collaboration between the University of Ulm (2007-2019) and the Technical University of Munich (2019-Present).

He is co-founder and co-director of the Institute für Angewandte & Integrative Gesundheitsforschung (IAIG), a research institute directed towards applied and integrative health research under the umbrella of the Diploma University of Applied Sciences in Germany (2024–present).

Fascial Net Plastination Project

In 2018, Schleip spearheaded the Fascial Net Plastination Project (FNPP), ananatomical research initiative designed to plastinate and study the human fascial network. The FNPP brought together experts in anatomy, dissection, and plastination, to plastinate a complete human fascia specimen.

The project created a full-body human fascia plastinate named FR:EIA (Fascia Revealed: Educating Interconnected Anatomy). FR:EIA was unveiled at the 2021 Fascia Research Congress and is currently on display at the Body Worlds exhibition in Berlin.

Lecturer

From 2005 to 2013, he served as a neurophysiology researcher at the University of Ulm. In 2014, he received a lifelong appointment as Visiting Professor at the Instituto Universitario de Ciencias de la Salud, Buenos Aires.

Since 2019, Schleip has been a Research Associate and, since 2024, a Senior Scientist at the professorship of conservative and rehabilitative orthopaedics in the TUM School of Medicine & Health at the Technical University of Munich.

Since 2019, Schleip has been a professor of conservative and rehabilitative orthopaedics in the Department of Sport and Health Sciences at the Technical University of Munich, and a faculty member at the Diploma University of Applied Sciences. SWR (German TV Channel): Documentaries aired on October 25, 2021, and September 10, 2020, explored the "fascia boom" and included contributions from Schleip.