The University of Bern is a member of the European university alliance ENLIGHT. In this interview, Rector Christian Leumann explains why the University of Bern joined ENLIGHT and what it means for students and staff at the University of Bern.
Uppsala is a bustling university town that lies about an hour north of Stockholm, the capital of Sweden. The university was founded in 1477 and is the oldest university in the Nordic countries.
There is a place in Europe where the climate is chilly, people are patriotic, and the mellow scent of freshly baked pies lingers in the air. Jule Ksinsik, political science student at the University of Bern, tells us about her exchange experience at the University of Tartu and explains why she advises all political science students to visit Estonia.
Last year, Tibo, a master’s student in biomedical engineering, decided to trade the Belgian flatlands for the Swiss Alps. Tibo has many stories to tell about his experience as an exchange student: from navigating Swiss bureaucracy to taking freezing-cold swims in the river Aare!
The University of Bern offers a program for refugees with an academic background to guide them towards admission as fully enrolled students. Ann-Seline Fankhauser, project leader of Compass-UniBE, and her colleague Solvej Sörensen explain why this programme complements the open lecture hall and what lessons were learned from the preparation year for Ukrainian school leavers.
This semester we welcomed more exchange students than ever before. A record number of 219 attendees joined our introduction events, organised by UniBE International. They benefited from an improved welcome offer. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the team at UniBE International turned the challenges of the pandemic into a project to improve the student experience by leveraging technology and introducing modular events.
The University of Bern welcomed the Vice Presidents of The Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities. They are decision-makers on the level of Vice Rectors from all 21 member universities of The Guild. Martina Hirayama, head of the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI), joined to discuss the relationship between Switzerland and the EU.
The preparation year allows school leavers who had to flee the war in Ukraine to prepare them for their university studies. The year is packed with language courses and introductory classes to study methods, transferable skills and much more. Martina Carolus, head of exchange programmes, and Jana Müller, project manager of the preparation year, explain how the preparation year differs from other ways how the University of Bern is helping Ukrainian refugees.
Antonina and Kateryna Antonenko came to Bern fleeing the war in Ukraine. The two medical professionals received a grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) to work and research at the Inselspital for one year. In this interview, the two sisters talk about the differences between working as doctors in Bern and Kyiv.
Elena studies Sport Science and English at the University of Bern. As a mandatory part of her degree, she had to study or work in an English-speaking country. She decided to go on a work exchange to the Republic of Ireland.