Chisato Todaka is an exchange student from Keio University in Japan. She studies social anthropology, but her real passion is the great outdoors. At the end of her exchange stay in Switzerland she will climb Mont Blanc – the highest mountain in Western Europe – with her father, an experienced mountain guide.
A delegation from the University of Groningen, led by Rector Jacquelien Scherpen, recently visited the University of Bern. The visit was characterised by lively discussions and showed a strong interest from both sides in strengthening existing collaborations and exploring new opportunities within ENLIGHT.
On 1 November 2023, the second phase of the European university alliance ENLIGHT started with the University of Bern as its tenth and newest member. More than a hundred people from different faculties and departments came to celebrate the beginning of our ENLIGHT membership and learn more about the alliance.
Rethinking research partnerships with universities on the African continent
Three visionaries are changing how the University of Bern collaborates with partner universities in Africa. They are doing so with two prestigious Clusters of Research Excellence. In this interview, Hugues Abriel, Vice-Rector of Research, Thomas Breu, Director of CDE, and Carmen Faso, Co-Director of MCID reflect on the challenges and opportunities of creating equitable research partnerships.
Luca Mast came home from South Africa and found his views on society profoundly changed. As a Bachelor student in English language and literature, he has a good ear for languages. In this interview, he explains why he chose to learn isiXhosa and Afrikaans, two of the many languages spoken in South Africa and how his interactions with lecturers were different from what he was used to in Switzerland.
Image: Lizé Myburgh
During the summer holidays, students from all over the world come to Bern to attend the university’s international summer schools. Lizé Myburgh is one of them. She gives us an insight into her experience at the Summer School on Climate Change and talks about the most precarious climate change issues facing her Rainbow Nation.
Too many cystic fibrosis patients in Africa die young and often without ever having been diagnosed. In many African countries there are too few test devices that could diagnose the disease. Nada and Michèle, two doctoral students at the University of Bern, launched a crowdfunding campaign to buy a test device and were overwhelmed by the result.
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.