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

Promotion

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

To the Fund for the Promotion of Young Researchers
To the Initiator Grants
To the 120% Care Grant
To UniBE Doc.Mobility
To the Short Travel Grants

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 doctoral degree, various forms of structured doctoral degrees are available at the University of Bern:

Graduate Schools
Doctoral programs
The doctorate at the University of Bern

Transferable Skills

The project Transferable Skills offers PhD candidates and postdoctoral fellows of the University of Bern a changing program comprising topics such as project management, scientific writing and publishing, statistical data analysis and visualization, communication, time management, funding acquisition etc. The aim is to foster participants' employability and effectiveness of their research.
Transferable Skills

Counselling

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

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.

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.

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

The next meeting of the Commission takes place:

Thursday, 3 Juni 2025, 2.00 p.m.

Member list of the commission (PDF, 39KB)

Working group for Academic Careers

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

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
  • The Human Resources Office
  • The Intermediate Staff Association
  • The University Library

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

Management

Transferable Skills

Transferable Skills

Counselling