The Public Health Institute of Georgia is a non-profit institute. It takes no advertising and no sponsorship from companies whose products or services it assesses, and it distributes no profit. Like any institute, it needs income to continue its work and to develop it: research, open data, education, accreditation standards, and its programmes in health promotion.
How PHIG sustains itself
PHIG is building a set of services whose income is reinvested in the institute’s work, so that the institute does not depend on any single donor or grant cycle:
- Commissioned assessments at Sheni Labs — verification of supplements, traditional medicine products, cosmetics and household products for manufacturers, importers, retailers and public bodies; a fee pays for the work, never for the result. Terms
- Accreditation and quality services — advisory and readiness work through Accréditation Sans Frontières and the Accreditation Canada – Georgia office, ISO 9001 Ready and ISO 15189 Ready packs, and the PHIG LabQuality programme.
- Education — GMJ Academy courses are free until the end of 2026; a sustainable model (institutional licences, certification fees) is being prepared for 2027, with free access retained for Georgian students and public-sector staff.
- Research and evidence services — commissioned studies, country assessments, labour-market and occupational-health analyses through the Georgian Institute of Labour Studies, and publishing services through the Georgian Medical Journal.
- Grants and partnerships — project funding from public bodies, foundations and international organisations, declared on this page as agreements are signed.
Pro bono work and paid work
Most of what the PHIG network publishes is the work of people who give their time without payment. The editorial team of the Georgian Medical Journal works entirely pro bono; the reviewers of the journal, the experts of Sheni Labs, the authors of the Academy’s courses and the advisers of the Georgian Institute of Labour Studies contribute their knowledge free of charge. The institute depends on this support, and it says so plainly: without it, none of the network would exist.
Some work cannot be done pro bono. Where a service requires sustained, professional effort — a commissioned assessment with a deadline, a laboratory analysis, an accreditation readiness project, the production of a course, the maintenance of a database — PHIG engages and pays people to carry it out. That is one of the reasons the institute offers paid services: the fee covers the professionals it hires for the task, and the remainder goes to the institute’s programmes.
Running costs
An institute that publishes nine websites and a network of more than thirty sites, a journal with DOIs, an academy, open databases and daily automated services has fixed costs that volunteers cannot absorb: hosting and domains, software licences and API services, DOI registration, accounting and legal services, administration, and the staff who keep the systems running. These are the costs that fee income and grants must cover first; they are reported in the annual summary.
Acknowledgement
PHIG records its gratitude to everyone who supports the network pro bono — the GMJ editorial team above all, the reviewers, the experts, the authors and the partner institutions. Their work is the institute’s largest resource, and the institute’s duty is to make sure that the paid part of its activity protects, rather than replaces, the voluntary part.
Rules that do not change
- Fees pay for work, never for outcomes: no assessment, accreditation readiness report, article or course result can be bought.
- All income is recorded in PHIG’s accounts and reinvested in the institute’s programmes; no part goes to any individual.
- Experts and reviewers across the network work pro bono and declare their interests.
- A summary of income and spending is published each year.
- Nothing, ever, from the tobacco, nicotine or vaping industry or entities they fund; the institute applies WHO FCTC Article 5.3 to itself. Read the firm line.
Enquiries about services, grants or partnerships: info@accreditation.ge.
Support PHIG → — donate, fund a programme, give your expertise, commission a service.
Legal status and international standing →
PHIG Policy Framework → — the seventy-five policies by which the institute governs itself, written to EU, US, WHO/UN and bilateral donor standards and the Core Humanitarian Standard.