Academic Careers Office

The Academic Careers Office in the Vice-Rectorate International and Academic Careers supports young academics to ensure they produce outstanding work during their academic career.

Excellent promotion conditions at the University of Bern

The Academic Careers Office is responsible for the following areas:

  • Coordination of the university policy for the promotion of early career researchers
  • Development, implementation and evaluation of measures to promote early career researchers
  • Development and administration of target group-specific funding instruments and further offers
  • Information and advice on academic career issues

The Academic Careers Office addresses with its services and offers early career researchers of every qualification level (on the level of the doctorate, post-doctorate, lectureship and assistant professorship) and to all the research areas, to all the faculties and all the units which deal with questions regarding the promotion of early career researchers.

Services

Support

The Academic Careers Office supports researchers at doctorate and post-doctorate level with specific funds.

Graduate Schools and Doctoral programs

The doctoral degree is a precondition for an academic career but also qualifies holders for demanding roles in business and society. In addition to the traditional individual doctorate, various forms of structured doctoral programs are available at the University of Bern:

Transferable Skills and Career Opportunities

The Transferable Skills Program offers doctoral candidates and postdoctoral researchers at the University of Bern courses in interdisciplinary skills such as project management, scientific writing, communication, data management, and funding acquisition. The aim is to strengthen employability and enhance the effectiveness of research work.

The workshops and coaching sessions offered by the Postdoc Career Navigator support postdocs in planning and implementing career paths within and beyond academia. The workshops are available to all postdocs at the University of Bern. Individual workshops are also open to doctoral candidates with academic aspirations.

Advice

The Academic Careers Office advises early career researchers on planning their academic career and, in particular, offers support in examining funding opportunities at the postdoctoral level.

Coordination

The Academic Careers Office runs the secretariat of the Commission for the Promotion of Early Career Researchers at the University of Bern. It ensures coordination with all service offices and institutes of the university committed to promoting early career researchers. It provides information within the university and to the outside to suit the target group concerned.

The Academic Careers working group bundles the expertise of the different units of the central administration. The working group is managed by the Academic Careers Office.

Boards

Commission for the Promotion of Early-Career Researchers

The Commission for the Promotion of Early-Career Researchers advises and supports the Executive Board of the University of Bern in all matters concerning promotion of early-career researchers.

Duties

The Commission

  • oversees, among other things, specific university programs for the promotion of early-career researchers
  • compiles recommendations
  • and is responsible for all information on the promotion of early-career researchers.

Members

The Commission is composed of delegates from all faculties, intermediate staff, students as well as university offices which are particularly committed to matters concerning the promotion of early-career researchers. The Commission is chaired by the Vice-Rector International and Academic Careers, Prof. Dr. Andrew Chan. The Commission has its own rules of procedure (PDF, in German).

The Commission's office is managed by Matthias Hirt, Academic Careers Office.

Next meeting

The next meeting of the Commission takes place: June 11, 2026, 9-11 a.m.

Member list of the commission (PDF, 39KB)
Regulations of the commission (in German) (PDF, 273KB)

Working Group for Academic Careers

The working group for Academic Careers bundles the expertise of the different units of the central administration.

Members

The following offices and departments are directly involved with questions regarding the promotion of early-career researchers:

  • Vice-Rectorate International and Academic Careers: Academic Careers Office, Welcome Center of UniBE International
  • Vice-Rectorate Research and Innovation: Administrative Office Research Commission; Grants Office
  • Vice-Rectorate Quality and Sustainable Development: Office for Equal Opportunities
  • Vice-Rectorate Teaching; Head Staff
  • The Human Resources Office
  • The Intermediate Staff Association
  • The University Library

Goals

The working group has the following main goals:

  • regular, institutionalized exchange of information on ongoing measures for the promotion of young scientists
  • supply of expertise for decisions by the university's governing bodies.
  • consulting of other university units.
  • collecting best practice, developing model examples and input of recommendations into the inner-university decision-making processes.
  • exchange with internal and external university bodies, while also maintaining contact with other universities and institutions of higher education.

Contact and information

Matthias Hirt, Academic Careers Office, matthias.hirt@unibe.ch

Team

Team photo

Teambild
© University of Bern

Management

Secretariat

Transferable Skills

Advice

Projects