Portrait University Advancement

Professorship for climate and environmental economics

The University of Bern has created a professorship for climate and environmental economics, which can now be expanded thanks to the involvement of the Mercator Foundation Switzerland and the Gebäudeversicherung Bern. The goal pursued with the creation of this professorship is to expand the skills in research and teaching in the area of empirical-experimental climate and environmental economics. The newly created professorship for climate and environmental economics is interdisciplinary and will concentrate on the research topics of economics, climate research and the consequences of climate change on the economy and society. When combined with the University’s resources, the funding for the professorship received from the Mercator Foundation Switzerland and the property-insurance company Gebäudeversicherung Bern (GVB) mean that a substantial research group can be equipped.

In total, the Mercator Foundation Switzerland and Gebäudeversicherung Bern will each fund the professorship with CHF 2.33 million over the course of ten years. The professorship primarily deals with the consequences of climate change for the economy and society. This includes strategies to reduce the consequences of climate change (mitigation), as well as research on adapting to the effects caused by climate change (adaption). The professorship is part of the Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences and works together with the World Trade Institute (WTI) and the Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research (OCCR). The issue of climate change has been the subject of research at the University of Bern, but in particular, at the Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, at the World Trade Institute (WTI) or the Center for Development and Environment (CDE) for decades.