Vision
Following its vision from the “Strategy 2030”, the University of Bern also wants to create scientific, social and economic values from the digitalization.
The Human Being is at the heart of digital transformation
In research, teaching, continuing education and services, the University of Bern places the human being at the heart of its digitalization strategy: The human being exposed to the digital transformation processes while at the same time helping to shape them, the human being who needs to be prepared for the challenges of the digital world, and the human being studying, teaching, researching or working in administration at the University who needs digital skills and digital tools to pursue academic goals or fulfill their tasks.
The University describes its vision of "the Human Being in digital transformation" as part of its Strategy 2030, in sub-strategy 5: Digital transformation, as follows:
"People in Digital Transformation" provides a framework and benchmark for this discussion. The University is making use of the opportunities digitalization offers to constantly improve its research, teaching, continuing education and services. It takes an active role in the digital transformation of education and participates in the dialog between different educational institutions. The University also wants to use digital transformation to operate as efficiently, effectively and sustainably as possible.
Digitalization impacts people and their interactions. It is considered to be an element of social transformation and encompasses technical, economic, social, ethical, legal, humanistic and other aspects of our society. With this in mind, the University is seeking to position itself as an academic platform for society and the economy on all issues relating to digitalization. It also aims to reflect critically on the digital transformation by examining the opportunities and risks of digitalization in its research, addressing security and data protection issues, and developing proposals for implementing the digital transformation in a responsible way. The corresponding research will be conducted on a monodisciplinary, interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary basis as required, and the findings will be incorporated into the University’s teaching.
The necessary conditions (structures, processes, products, people, data protection, law, ethics, sustainability and security) must be created in order to put the thematic focus area of "People in Digital Transformation" into practice.
The University of Bern specifies its digitalization strategy in ten strategic goals (see 2. Goals, p. 66). These goals give rise to both target-related spheres of activity (see 3. Spheres of activity, p. 70) and requirements for a governance structure that will ensure an effective and efficient attainment of those goals (see 4. Governance, p. 78). In accordance with the provisions of the University of Bern’s Strategy 2030, the responsible committees must devise action plans for these pheres of activity. Furthermore, the faculties are free to define their own strategic focuses in their faculty strategies with regard to the digital transformation of their units.