Spheres of activity
Spheres of activity are assigned to the strategic objectives. These identify areas of increased urgency in terms of initiating digitalization-related measures.
These measures must be fleshed out in action plans that are no longer part of this digitalization strategy, but are developed by the responsible bodies and subjected to ongoing evaluation and revision. Bearing this in mind, the spheres of activity outlined below should be understood as initial areas of focus activity.
1. Establishing agile governance
This sphere of activity concerns the establishment of effective and efficient governance structures that ensure the active participation of the faculties and intermediate staff and students, and at the same time enable agile decision-making processes. The University members represented on the new committees are expected to ensure dynamic initiative in all spheres of activity of the digitalization strategy as well as the ongoing development of the University’s digitalization strategy.
2. Creating visibility
This sphere of activity refers to the regional, national and international visualization of the University of Bern’s positioning with regard to its focus on the opportunities and risks that digital transformation entails for Human Beings. At this point, it is not only important to develop topic-relevant courses and to intensify digitalization-related research activities; it also requires an appealing Internet presence and the initiation of publicity measures such as the establishment of a scientific lecture series on the key topic of the digitalization strategy.
3. Digitally transforming teaching
This sphere of activity brings together various teaching- related concerns, including, in particular, expanding the range of courses on future skills for a digital world and supplementing face-to-face teaching with digital teaching methods. In addition, the sphere of activity aims at the future-proof design of University teaching and learning spaces as well as the establishment of structures that allow the in-house scientific support of innovative higher education didactic concepts related to digitalization.
4. Stimulating key-topic-related research
This sphere of activity concerns digitalization-relevant research activities that are to be fostered at the University level as a whole if they are directly related to the key topic of the University’s digitalization strategy. This particularly addresses projects that focus on human beings in the digital transformation process or on the development of digital tools that support them in overcoming existing challenges, be it at work, in everyday life or in University research, teaching, continuing education or services. The faculties are free to promote digitalization- related research beyond the key topic, but at the same time they are encouraged to position themselves structurally in such a way as to increase their ability to contribute to the key topic of the digitalization strategy.
5. Digitally transforming research
This sphere of activity concerns the promotion of innovative digital technologies and the optimum safeguarding of digital equipment researchers need in order to become or remain competitive internationally. At the same time, an interoperability of information about research projects should be sought, together with interfaculty networking based on research topics in order to uncover potential synergies and to stimulate cooperation on digitalization- related research topics.
6. Solving archiving and research data problems holistically
This sphere of activity focuses on problems related to the collection, evaluation and safeguarding of research data or archive holdings in a digitally transformed world of science. It addresses diverse and constantly changing challenges – particularly of a technical and legal nature – for which it is necessary to develop holistic solutions and to establish resources as well as user-friendly and sustainable tools to overcome them.
7. Creating a digital campus
This sphere of activity relates to the establishment and further development of a digital campus that makes everyday life easier for all internal stakeholders and ensures optimum communication of existing services. The aim is to simplify existing processes and systematically digitalize them, taking into account economic, ecological and social aspects, not least with regard to the provision of digital tools to support students in their study organization and learning activities.
8. Optimizing communication relevant to digitalization
This sphere of activity concerns the optimization of the exchange of knowledge on digitalization-relevant activities between individuals and committees at all levels of the University. The aim is to establish knowledge exchange platforms, within the framework of which known solutions, projects, actions, initiatives etc. can be exchanged, and thus promote self-organization. In the case of existing and possibly new ICT organizational units, communication optimization also serves to improve the delineation of tasks, responsibilities and competencies.
9. Digitally empowering University members
This sphere of activity is intended to define measures that optimally enable members of the University to meet ever-increasing demands when using digital tools. This affects not only students who need to prepare for a digitally transformed world, but also researchers with regard to increasingly complex data acquisition and evaluation procedures, teachers with regard to their competence in the use of digital teaching methods, and administrative staff due to increasing demands on the mastery of digital administrative processes. The University of Bern takes into account the working time required for continuing education and training as well as the different starting points and basic knowledge in the field of digitalization.
10. Setting up a hybrid working mode
This sphere of activity is about present and digital forms of work complementing each other in a suitable way in order to establish a hybrid mode of work. The aim specified here goes beyond aspects of the design of University courses in that it basically refers to interactions at all levels of the University, i.e. equally to research, teaching, continuing education, administration and service. In doing so, the opportunities presented by advancing digitalization should be exploited without neglecting the value of the present exchange. In this way, the University’s organizational units are encouraged to test future-proof forms of work.
11. Meeting digitalization needs precisely
This sphere of activity concerns the introduction and establishment of requirements analyses in order to understand exactly what is required at different levels and in different organizational units of the University in order to meet the existing need for digitalization precisely. In this context, regular comparisons should also be made with other universities in order to introduce at least those technologies that correspond to the current state of the market. In addition, new, innovative technologies should be checked and tested to determine whether they provide added value for research, teaching, continuing education, administration or service providers, and thus provide the University of Bern with an advantage as a location.
12. Digitally transforming ICT organizational units
This sphere of activity is aimed at measures that transform both centralized and decentralized ICT organizational units from a structural and methodological point of view in such a way that they are able to meet changing requirements within a reasonable timeframe and in compliance with financial requirements. The updating of ICT-related structures and processes should follow a highly user-oriented and service-oriented approach, which – depending on the requirements – by no means rules out the retention in part of the parallel running of centralized and decentralized services.
13. Addressing security-related challenges
This sphere of activity focuses on the area of cybersecurity, the importance of which has increased dramatically in recent years and which affects the University as a research institution, not least in terms of valuable research data that could potentially be the target of cyberattacks. Against this backdrop, measures are to be defined to protect the ICT infrastructure of the University of Bern from attacks in all areas and to make users aware of risks. This definition may also be supported by internal University research activities in the field of cybersecurity.
14. Ensuring data protection
At the heart of this sphere of activity is the problem of an increasingly endangered informational self-determination of the individual, which is associated with digital transformation, and thus the responsibility of the University to guarantee adequate data protection in all areas of digitalization. This responsibility applies not only to the protection of the personal data of University members, but also, in particular, to the protection of confidential research data. In the case of new developments, such as the establishment of a hybrid working mode, data protection challenges must be taken into account.
15. Optimizing project and ICT service management
This sphere of activity particularly affects the central department of the University, where appropriate project and ICT service management methods have to be established in order to cope with the ever-increasing complexity of managing ICT services. In order to allow the faculties to participate in this process – on a voluntary basis – the centrally structured methods must be designed in such a way that they are suitable for transfer to decentralized organizational units.
16. Coordinating University and clinic ICT
This sphere of activity focuses on the growing need for coordinated alignment of all ICT organizational units at all levels of the University, due to the urgency of the problem, but especially at the interface between University human medicine and Insel Gruppe AG. Appropriate measures are to be defined in close coordination between Human Medicine, the University IT Services and the Clinic ICT in order to provide users of the Faculty of Medicine and the clinic with optimal ICT working conditions.