An Engaged University

The aim is to pursue ethical, responsible and socially reflective research and education, where innovations are fostered that serve the common good.

Specifically, this means:

1. Long-term engagement with external knowledge partners: as a university that assumes social responsibility, BFH is committed to long-term engagement. This includes collaboration with partners from various sectors.
2. Dialogue-based knowledge transfer: the overall focus is a partnership-based exchange on an equal footing with experts from the field and the public, where everyone is able to learn from each other.

As an Engaged University, BFH consistently aligns its activities to these goals.

PIONEER University Alliance

BFH is part of the PIONEER University Alliance. Through research projects and collaborations on degree programmes, this Alliance contributes to the development of urban spaces. This international alliance, which focuses on sustainability and better ecosystems in cities and municipalities, also benefits the Bern region and its SMEs.

Scholars at Risk

BFH is a member of the Scholars at Risk network, which comprises numerous universities worldwide that stand up for academic freedom and respect for human rights, especially in the context of teaching and research.

Challenge Based Learning

We train our students to become change agents and prepare them for the demands of their future work environments. For this, we rely on innovative didactic concepts such as challenge-based learning (CBL), in which students work on real-life problems and develop practical solutions. Lecturers give up face-to-face instruction and instead accompany the learning process. In this way, we empower students to initiate sustainable changes in society.

Funding of student projects

Students become actively engaged in the area of sustainability and benefit from support programmes.

Entrepreneurship for startups and company founders

As part of the Bern ecosystem for innovation and entrepreneurship, BFH supports business startups.

Continuing education

BFH’s continuing education programmes (EMBA, MAS, DAS, CAS), seminars and courses stand out for their high degree of practical application. They encourage students to pursue professional specialisations and broaden students’ horizons beyond the familiar.

APPs Academy Practice Partnerships

The Academy Practice Partnership facilitates the harnessing of synergies between the Bern University of Applied Sciences and Insel Gruppe. Here the focus is on the disciplines of nutrition and dietetics, obstetrics, nursing and physiotherapy and their interprofessional added value.

Service Learning implementation

Tackling civil society issues collaboratively: Service Learning makes it possible. The project serves to develop and implement Service Learning in university tuition at BFH.

HKB touches ground

An annual call for projects gives the Canton of Bern an unconventional platform: the 350 or so Bern municipalities are invited to submit ideas for artistic projects to be realised in a one-year collaboration with HKB lecturers and students.

Emma on a farm tour

A project in which budding agronomists give children aged 4+ an exciting insight into their specialist field.

Food Hub 

A place for startups in the field of food science, offering 1,000m² of technological pilot infrastructure not only to research projects, but also to startups and SMEs.

Collaboration with Kornhausforum

Under the label “Science, arts and politics in conversation”, the Kornhausforum regularly hosts discussion events on socially relevant issues organised by BFH.