Strategy

The University of Bern is committed to supporting early-career researchers and on positioning itself as an attractive employer. The focus is on making it easier to plan academic career paths. In so doing, the university is responding to national and international challenges in the academic system.   

In keeping with its Strategy 2030, the University of Bern offers fair employment conditions and comprehensive support in the form of advisory services, specific funding schemes, mentoring programs, courses and other services. This is how the university strives to ensure that early-career researchers can fulfill their optimal potential and excel in their performance.

Background information on university policy  

As early as in 2014, a comprehensive report of the Swiss Federal Council pointed to structural weaknesses in the domain of academic career development. Said report identified the postdoctoral phase as a particularly critical time. Many researchers have temporary work contracts and unclear prospects. The report called for reforms in order to make academic careers easier to plan, more equitable and more appealing. Ten years on from then, the Federal Council published a further report, in response to a postulate of the Swiss Parliament, with the same main thrust. swissuniversities is running a priority program, from 2025 to 2028, that includes special measures at the postdoctoral level (see below). 

Reforms at the University of Bern

The University of Bern, together with its faculties and intermediate staff, has taken comprehensive measures:   

  • Binding agreements for all doctoral candidates and postdocs now regulate the general conditions, supervision, milestones and individual qualification goals. 
  • New postdoctoral positions with a high level of Protected Research Time have replaced outdated models and create greater clarity.   
  • Tenure-track assistant professorships offer new career options, e.g., with a focus on teaching.  
  • The structure of tenure-track assistant professorships has been improved so as to provide greater planning security.    

These reforms are helping to make academic careers more transparent and more attractive – also by international standards.   

Action plan for the postdoc phase

As part of Subproject 1 of swissuniversities’ national program to promote early-career researchers (2025–2028), the University of Bern is implementing an action plan for the postdoc phase that aims to improve research, teaching and employment conditions of postdoctoral researchers. The purpose of the adopted measures is to better prepare postdoctoral researchers at the University of Bern for their respective –academic or non-academic– career. The measures taken so far include, inter alia:  

  • Expansion of the transferable skills program in the domain of AI  
  • Career opportunities for postdocs  
  • Leadership training for postdocs   
  • Call for proposals for bottom-up projects   
  • Revision of the (post-)doctoral agreements   

Implementation of DORA declaration

The University of Bern undertakes to implement the principles of the DORA declaration, particularly in regard to promoting early-career researchers, Research achievements are assessed not just quantitatively but also qualitatively, and in consideration of context.