Facts on the University of Bergen
Rector: Professor Sigmund Grønmo
Deputy Rector: Professor Anne Gro Vea Salvanes
Vice-Rector for Education: Professor Berit Rokne Hanestad
Vice-Rector for International Relations: Professor Kjersti Fløttum
University Director: Kari Tove Elvbakken
Deputy University Director: Sverre
Spildo
Deans:
Faculty of Arts: Gunnstein Akselberg
Faculty of Law: Ernst Nordtveit
Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences: Hans Petter Sejrup
Faculty of Medicine: Per Omvik
Faculty of Dentistry: Magne Raadal
Faculty of Psychology:
Gerd Kvale
Faculty of Social Sciences: Alf Erling Risa
- Annual report 2006 (in Norwegian)
- Key figures 2006 (in Norwegian)
- Organisation
- What is the University of Bergen?
- Continental Bergen
- The urban university
- A western Norwegian and national node
- Strategic plan 2005-2010
Committee report 1939
"The people of this country live under harsh conditions. They have to struggle to support themselves and to survive competition. In this struggle for existence we need the support of scholarship.
(....) not only the natural sciences; the humanities can be an equally important link in the struggle of such a small nation to survive.
(....) It is not necessary for the new university to be an exact copy of the old one in all respects. Indeed, it would be more valuable if we were able to create something distinctive, so that this new college of higher education would be capable of putting out new shoots, encouraging a versatile cultural life in our society and bringing new ideas and motivation to working life and industry".
(Committee appointed to consider the question of establishing a university in Bergen, 1939).
Crossing borders
Curiosity is the driving force of learning and scholarship. What we already know is never sufficient. Human beings have an inner need to know how and why.
The acquisition of new knowledge is a matter of crossing borders. Scholarship crosses borders. The researcher has always been oriented towards his fellow thinkers, no matter where they are. Knowledge is acquired from wherever it is available, and it is both challenged and multiplied when it is shared with others. An important task for the University of Bergen is to act as an interface with the national and international intellectual environment.
What is the University of Bergen
With its 15,000 students and 3,000 faculty and staff members, the University
of Bergen is a medium-sized European university. It is an urban university,
with much of its campus close to the city centre of Bergen. The University
of Bergen is both a teaching and research institution in most subjects,
organized in seven faculties and some 90 departments and specialized centres.
The University of Bergen also forms part of a global network of students, researchers and academic institutions. The University is a meeting place and a gateway to other sources of expertise, local, national and international. Our focus on international relations since the mid-eighties has profiled the University of Bergen as an international university in Norway, in line with the traditions of the city.
Continental Bergen
Bergen is international. This medieval Hansa city laid the foundations
of a European and continental urban culture that is still unique in a
Norwegian context.
The city has long looked to the sea and to Europe. With its back to the mountains and as home to a major shipping industry, Bergen found the North Sea route shorter than the path to the east, over the mountains to the rest of the country. From the earliest times, dried fish and other fish products have been our most important trading products, and these were usually transported on our own keels. Trade brought an influx of people from other cultures, bearing other types of knowledge. New impulses influenced the city and gave Bergen its soul and its unique character.
The sea still provides the city and its surroundings with its most important resources - fish, oil and gas, and maritime transport. However, knowledge has become an increasingly important "product", which is supplied for the most part by the university and other centres of teaching and research.
The urban university
The University of Bergen is Norway's urban university, with most of its
premises concentrated in two areas.
Årstadvollen is the University's "health campus", where dentistry, medicine and health-care lie close to the Haukeland and Haraldsplass university clinics.
Other subjects - natural and social sciences, psychology, the arts and law - are taught at Nygårdshøyden, a mixture of houses, shops and seats of learning. The University of Bergen is intricately woven into the geographical, historical and cultural framework of the city.
A western Norwegian and national nodeBergen has some 30,000 students. The University itself (and its affiliated institutions, including the Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center and Haukeland University Hospital), the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, Bergen University College, the Chr. Michelsen Institute, and the Institute of Marine Research, are the city's most important academic institutions.
In the course of the past few years, the University of Bergen has developed and formalized its cooperative efforts with other colleges of higher education in Western Norway, from Møre in the northern part of the region to Agder in the south. Together with the three other Norwegian universities, the University of Bergen is a node in the national network of institutions of research and higher education.
