KEY AREA
Sustainability
The University of Bern is a leader in research on global warming, biodiversity and land use. In 2021, these activities once again spanned the range from trailblazing basic research all the way to specific applications.
- More than one third of all heat-related deaths were attributable to human-induced global warming. That was one of the insights provided by an international study coordinated in Bern, which was also the world’s most highly publicized study on climate change in 2021.
- The “Urban Climate Bern” project is laying the groundwork for specific measures designed to counteract the growing impact of heat on the population.
- With the help of data from Antarctic ice cores, researchers were able to reconstruct global mean ocean temperatures over the last 700,000 years for the first time.
- A research and innovation project plans to use digital agricultural extension services to promote the use of sustainable cultivation methods by smallholding families in Africa and Asia with the goal of improving their productivity, income and climate resilience.
- The University of Bern devised science-based recommendations for action for the UN Biodiversity Conference and the University’s Botanical Garden (BOGA) worked together with the city of Bern to demonstrate specific ways that biodiversity can be promoted in people’s own gardens or on balconies.
