Dear colleagues, We would like to draw your attention to a School and conference on "Gradient Flows, Large Deviation Theory, and Macroscopic Fluctuation Theory“ which will take place *June 17-21 2024 at Bielefeld University* and is part of the 2024 activity month "Fluctuations in interacting systems: From optimal transport and Fokker–Planck equations to fluid dynamics and SPDEs“ of the collaborative research center 1283 ( https://www.sfb1283.uni-bielefeld.de/workshops/activitymonth/2024). The overarching topic of the conference is the effective description of large systems of interacting particles and their fluctuations around their typical behaviour. This mathematical challenge is of fundamental importance in a variety of applications, ranging from mathematical modelling in the sciences, to the foundations of non-equilibrium statistical mechanics and the dynamics of modern learning algorithms. Addressing these questions involves ideas from various disciplines in mathematics and physics. The workshop will bring together both leading experts and junior researchers from various fields, such as macroscopic fluctuation theory and non-equilibrium statistical mechanics, interacting particle systems, large deviation theory, gradient flows and variational methods for partial differential equations, and stochastic partial differential equations. The program will feature lecture series and talks by leading scientists as well as opportunities for junior scientists to present their work. For more details please see https://www.sfb1283.uni-bielefeld.de/2024_MFT/ With kind regards, Matthias Erbar and Benjamin Gess -- Prof. Dr. Benjamin Gess (www.bgess.de) Universität Bielefeld <https://www.math.uni-bielefeld.de/>, Fakultät für Mathematik Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences <http://www.mis.mpg.de/index.html>, Leipzig