News

The project "For climate-friendly mobility in sports clubs" (KliMoSpo) at the Institute of Sport Science at the University of Bern addresses exactly this issue and has completed the groundwork in its first project year.

Why sports clubs are the right lever

Switzerland has around 18,000 sports clubs with roughly two million members. Clubs thus reach a large share of the population and shape their members' behaviour through shared structures and social norms, extending well beyond sport itself. Existing climate initiatives in Swiss sport have so far mostly focused on individual major events, largely leaving aside the everyday mobility behaviour of club members. KliMoSpo takes a different approach: instead of addressing individual athletes, the project takes the whole club as its starting point, since change is most likely to take hold there and carry over into everyday life beyond sport.

Three associations, one shared goal

Under the direction of Prof. Dr. Siegfried Nagel and Dr. Christian Moesch, KliMoSpo works closely with three societal partners: the Swiss Football Association (SFV), Swiss-Ski and the Swiss Alpine Club (SAC). The aim is the joint, evidence-based development, implementation and evaluation of pilot programmes for more climate-friendly mobility in grassroots sports clubs. The project runs from July 2025 to June 2028 and is structured in three phases: problem analysis and development, implementation, and evaluation and knowledge transfer.

The collaboration has been participatory from the outset. Three workshops with all partners, a dedicated sounding board of external experts from academia and practice, and six student groups from the master's module "Sport Marketing and Responsibility" laid the groundwork for the project.

What actually moves clubs

Findings from focus groups, questionnaires, interviews and document analyses paint a clear picture: climate-friendly mobility is broadly supported by club and section members. In everyday life, however, the car often remains the first choice, seen as more practical, flexible and better suited to everyday needs.

The car proves particularly persistent around matches and competitions. Equipment transport, time constraints and organisational demands, especially on coaches, make switching harder. The "last mile" to snow sport areas and early start times for tours or competitions also often make public transport an impractical option.

A look at the pilot project "Railway 50%" by the Central Switzerland Snow Sport Association (ZSSV) shows how difficult behavioural change is: the discount code for public transport tickets, offered to around 10,500 members, was redeemed only twelve times in the 2024/25 winter season. The initiative was generally well received but failed partly due to an overly complicated redemption process. Financial incentives alone evidently aren't enough to break established habits.

At the SAC, by contrast, low-threshold solutions tend to work better than existing complex digital systems: carpooling chat groups and fixed meeting points for shared rides take hold more easily in practice than new apps. And across all three associations, the same finding emerges: coaches, tour leaders and club leadership are key figures. Their example and active engagement help determine whether a carpool forms or the car is chosen over the train.

Visibility beyond the academic world

The interim findings have already attracted attention: a segment on SRF's Tagesschau covered the topic using an SFV club as an example, the project was published in the journal GAIA, and it was presented at the Sustainability Day of the four Bern universities as well as at the international conference "Sport and Sustainability" in April 2026 in Bern.

What's next

The problem analysis phase is complete, implementation follows next. From summer 2026, the team will work with practice partners and selected clubs to develop concrete pilot programmes. Ideas under discussion include "Bike to Training", training and awareness modules, and further club- and association-specific measures. Implementation is again closely linked to the master's module "Sport Marketing and Responsibility", which will co-develop and evaluate the programmes.

KliMoSpo is an example of how transdisciplinary research at the University of Bern becomes concrete: working with three sports associations, clubs and their members, with the ambition not just to understand, but to change something.

KliMoSpo is part of Engaged UniBE. Project leads: Prof. Dr. Siegfried Nagel and Dr. Christian Moesch, Institute of Sport Science. Partners: Swiss Football Association, Swiss-Ski, Swiss Alpine Club. A scholarly discussion of the project was published in August 2026 in the journal GAIA: Boemmel, A., Moesch, C., Moser, M., Piller, S. & Nagel, S. (2026). Sportvereine in der Verantwortung für nachhaltige Transformation. GAIA 35(3), 220–221.

For the GAIA article:  220_221_KliMoSpo-GAIA_ger.pdf

Universities are increasingly called upon to help address complex societal challenges such as climate change, circular economy, geopolitical security and thriving communities. Yet, while challenge-oriented innovation frameworks such as ‘missions-oriented innovation’ have proliferated in policy and industry, the role of universities often remains implicit. Incumbent governance arrangements and research practices often reinforce institutional conservatism rather than proactively provide pathways towards mission or challenge-led approaches. This presentation develops an integrated governance perspective that connects strategic missions, relational infrastructures, and everyday research and engagement practices to understand how universities are experimenting with driving transformative change.

Drawing on a program of conceptual and empirical work at Monash University, the presentation weaves together insights from mission-oriented research initiatives, the governance and development of university living lab infrastructures, and transitions-oriented projects. The analysis builds on a rich set of data sources, including over 50 expert and practitioner interviews, cross-case international comparison, documentary analyses, and internal reviews of major mission-oriented programs. It examines how universities can move from strategic mission-setting through governance and institutional embedding to practical enactment in research. By building on insights from mission-oriented innovation, living labs, and sustainability transitions, the presentation offers a multi-level view on transformative universities that moves beyond fragmented, isolated and short-term initiatives.

This integrated perspective fills a critical gap in understanding how universities experiment with institutional transformation to position themselves for challenge-led research and impact. It offers both conceptual insights and practical pathways for universities seeking to mobilise their research, education, partnerships, and governance capabilities toward societal missions.
Professor Rob Raven is Director of the Sustainability Transitions Lab at Monash Business School and a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. He is an internationally recognised scholar in sustainability transitions, innovation, and transformative change, with over 160 publications and significant research funding. His research examines how governments, businesses, universities and communities can accelerate responses to complex societal challenges, including climate change, circular economy transitions, and sustainable urban development. Rob is a co-founder of the global Sustainability Transitions Research Network, a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher, and is listed among the world’s top 2% most influential researchers. He currently leads the Sustainability Transitions Lab and is convening the establishment of the Monash Climate Change and Sustainability Network, a university-wide initiative to strengthen collaboration and impact across climate and sustainability research at Monash University.

The talk takes place on Thursday, 3 September 2026 | 16:00–17:30
Hörsaal 2, Institute of Geography, Hallerstrasse 12, 3012 Bern

On 4 December 2025, Prof. Manuel Franco, social and urban epidemiologist at the Basque Climate Change Research Centre (BC3 / Ikerbasque), visited the Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine (ISPM) at the University of Bern. Prof. Franco is well known as the Principal Investigator of the ERC Starting Grant “Heart Healthy Hoods”, which explored how urban environments shape cardiovascular health.

In a brainstorming workshop hosted by the research groups Climate Epidemiology and Public Health and Community Health and Health Care Systems, Prof. Ana Vicedo-Cabrera, Prof. Annika Frahsa, Dr. Apolline Saucy and Dr. Sophie Meyer discussed and reflected on preliminary project ideas related to the UrbanLab Viererfeld together with Prof. Franco.

Drawing on his extensive expertise in studying cities and neighbourhoods as complex public health environments, Prof. Franco critically examined assumptions, methods and impact pathways. Together, the group developed a project concept focusing on physical activity, climate change and urban space.

Physical activity, climate change and public health are closely intertwined. Weather and environmental conditions shape how safely and comfortably people can move through cities. Evidence suggests non-linear relationships between temperature and activity levels, alongside increasing heat-related mortality and mental health risks. At the same time, high-quality public spaces and supportive infrastructure are key enablers of safe physical activity.

The planned observational study will focus on a yet-to-be-built neighbourhood with mixed socio-economic characteristics, developing a monitoring framework to capture residents’ perceptions and use of public space over time. The aim is to support the co-creation of heatwave mitigation and adaptation strategies with residents. Methods will combine observational assessments with participatory approaches such as Photovoice or the Our Voice App, as well as in-depth interviews. The project will be implemented in modular components, including master’s theses in climate science and medicine. The project is planned to start in spring/summer 2026, documenting the “before” situation and following residents annually during heatwaves.

Following a relaxed lunch and wide-ranging conversations, Prof. Franco gave a lecture as part of the Bern Lectures in Health Sciences. He highlighted cities as constantly evolving environments and therefore crucial arenas for public health research and action. Improving urban health requires more than evidence alone: it depends on strong collaboration between researchers, citizens and policymakers. Citizen science methods like Photovoice make lived experiences visible over time, revealing missing green spaces, barriers to healthy food, or constraints on physical activity. While research generates knowledge, decisions about solutions ultimately remain political.

The key takeaway: Healthier cities emerge when we listen to communities, work across disciplines, and treat investments in health as investments in a shared future.

Through its Promoting Sustainable Development through Education (FNE) program, the University of Bern supports projects that strengthen sustainability-related competences and view learning as a collaborative, reflective process. A wide range of educational formats are eligible for funding, from courses and workshops to conferences, exhibitions, and podcasts.

FNE will now be more closely linked to Engaged UniBE: in addition to the current range of funding opportunities, cooperation with non-university partners is explicitly strengthened. This will open up further opportunities to design and implement educational projects together with actors from civil society, administration, culture, and practice—in a dialogical, transdisciplinary, and socially anchored manner.

FNE funding creates possibilities for the development, implementation, and evaluation of educational formats. The goal is education for sustainable development (ESD) that goes beyond the mere transfer of knowledge and opens up spaces for co-creation, reflection, and action.

Concrete examples from past FNE and Engaged projects show how diverse and effective sustainable development can be through education – from co-creative teaching formats to transdisciplinary real-world experiments with societal partners.

Submission deadline: 28 February, 2026
Contact: Centre for Development and Environment (CDE), ESD Team - sustainability.cde@unibe.ch

Based on a response to the position paper by Nölting et al. (2025), Mayer emphasizes: universities are already important drivers of sustainable development today. However, the path toward becoming a consistently impactful, transdisciplinary, and transformative institution is long, demanding, and shaped by institutional diversity.

Using the University of Bern as an example, the article shows what progress is possible when sustainability is strategically embedded – through strong research traditions in climate and development, through Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), or through clear political and institutional mandates. At the same time, Mayer openly addresses the challenges that accompany this transformation.

A central element of this development is the initiative Engaged UniBE. It represents a conscious opening of the university toward society and new forms of collaboration between science and practice. Engaged UniBE supports transdisciplinary projects in which researchers work together with actors from civil society, politics, and business on concrete solutions for sustainable development. The article describes how this initiative emerged from a critical engagement with climate compensation and today deliberately invests resources in projects with societal impact.

In addition to opportunities, Mayer identifies three key hurdles on the path to sustainability transformation in universities: a lack of resources in times of tight budgets, a science culture still strongly shaped by quantitative metrics, and the perception of the university as an inaccessible “black box” for non-university actors. Transformation, the central message makes clear, cannot be achieved through individual flagship projects alone. It requires long-term political support, appropriate incentive structures, new forms of research evaluation, and above all the willingness of universities to actively engage in societal processes.

The article underscores: an engaged university does not emerge overnight. But with initiatives like Engaged UniBE, a changing scientific culture, and the courage to open up, it can become a driving force for a sustainable future.

👉 The full article is Open Access in GAIA 34/4 (2025).

👉 Artikel als PDF in German

On the occasion of the Dies academicus 2025, a video was released entitled “How the University of Bern Creates Economic Value.” It vividly illustrates how the University of Bern has an impact regionally, nationally, and internationally – and what contributions it makes to society, the economy, and politics.

In the second half of the video, Engaged UniBE takes center stage. It shows how transdisciplinary collaboration, regional anchoring, and dialogue with societal actors are actively practiced. In doing so, the video reflects key ideas from the speech of Rector Prof. Dr. Virginia Richter: international networking and societal engagement are not opposites, but two sides of the same responsibility.

Engaged UniBE exemplifies this understanding of a university that not only produces knowledge, but also shapes the future together with partners – dialogically, co-creatively, and sustainably.

👉 Watch the video „Wie die Uni Bern wirtschaftlichen Mehrwert schafft“

Do you study or work at Mittelstrasse 43, or are you one of our neighbors in the Länggasse district? Then take part in this survey and share your opinion on the sustainable development of Mittelstrasse. The survey takes about 10 minutes, and by participating you have the chance to win one of 20 vouchers worth CHF 10 each for the “Bistro Mitti.” Join in by December 15, 2025.

Link to survey

The project Engaged Mittelstrasse explores the role of sustainability in everyday university life, using the site at Mittelstrasse 43 as an example. In this vibrant building with institutes, offices, a library, and a bistro, people from research, studies, teaching, operations, and the local community come together. Over the coming years, Engaged Mittelstrasse will address the topic of a sustainability culture from different perspectives. Through an open-ended process that brings together various actors, the aim is to create a transdisciplinary understanding of sustainability culture at the site and to foster appreciation of the diverse contributions.

The GreenCampus project is part of Engaged Mittelstrasse and focuses on greening the building’s courtyard to contribute to climate protection, promote biodiversity, and enable new integration into the neighborhood.

Engaged Mittelstrasse is carried out by the Centre for Development and Environment in cooperation with the Vice-Rectorate Quality and Sustainable Development within the framework of the Engaged UniBE initiative. The project is part of the national project RealTransform, funded by the swissuniversities program Strengthening a Culture of Sustainability at Swiss Higher Education Institutions (PgB 2025–2028), which investigates at several universities how so-called real-world experiments can contribute to sustainable transformation. The goal is to test new forms of collaboration, promote shared learning, and establish transdisciplinary spaces at universities.

How do we move from scientific knowledge to action for a sustainable future? What educational models are needed – and what forms of collaboration between universities, politics, society, and business? At the Sustainability Day of the Bernese Universities on October 31, 2025, around 250 participants engaged in intensive discussions on these questions. A review in 16 images.

Artikel just in German: Hier zum Artikel!

The Vice-Rectorate Quality and Sustainable Development is calling for projects that are in line with the Climate Roadmap 2030. We are looking for innovative projects that use transdisciplinary methods to promote climate protection and involve social actors in the Bern region in new and effective ways.

To the call for proposals

The Vice-Rectorate Quality and Sustainable Development is calling for projects that are in line with the Climate Roadmap 2030. We are looking for innovative projects that use transdisciplinary methods to promote climate protection and involve social actors in the Bern region in new and effective ways.

To the call for proposals

The first "Wissenschaftsapéro", a co-production of Engaged UniBE and the “Altes Pfarrhaus” meeting place in Muri, took place on March 12. Professor Dr. Dr. Claus Beisbart from the Institute of Philosophy spoke on the topic of “Thinking AI. A future technology from a philosophical perspective” and entered in a discussion with the audience. We would like to thank all participants for the interesting evening and look forward to the next Wissenschaftsapéro on May 21.

The first "Wissenschaftsapéro", a co-production of Engaged UniBE and the “Altes Pfarrhaus” meeting place in Muri, took place on March 12. Professor Dr. Dr. Claus Beisbart from the Institute of Philosophy spoke on the topic of “Thinking AI. A future technology from a philosophical perspective” and entered in a discussion with the audience. We would like to thank all participants for the interesting evening and look forward to the next Wissenschaftsapéro on May 21.

On January 20, 2025, the exciting cross-university project “RealTransform: Real-world laboratories as transformation spaces for sustainable development in universities and society” was launched. In the coming months, we will set the course for real-world experiments that could mark the start of real-world laboratories.

Dr. Lilian Julia Trechsel, Jonas Niederberger and Dr. Claudia Saalfrank are looking forward to working with Dr. rer. pol. Jeannette Behringer, Linde Warland from the University of Zurich, Dr. Sarah-Jane Conrad, Dr. Moritz Gubler and Nina Simonett from the Bern University of Teacher Education, Dr. Clemens Mader, Prof. Dr. Mark Krieger and Dr. Christoph Küffer from the Ostschweizer Fachhochschule, Dr. Stefan Müller from the Network for Transdisciplinary Research and Leonie Barnsteiner from the University of Zurich Student Sustainability Commission and the resulting opportunities for sustainable development. 🚀

At the beginning of December, representatives from the Länggasse, the municipality of Köniz, the Diemtigtal Nature Park and the University of Bern met to discuss projects and key points of transdisciplinary collaboration.

The workshop took place ‘at the gateway to the Diemtigtal’ on the premises of the Diemtigtal Nature Park in Oey.

On October 24, Hugues Abriel (Vice-Rector Research and Innovation), Elmar Anhalt (Dean of the Faculty of Humanities) and Sébastien Hug (Head of the Innovation Office) opened the University of Bern's Ideas Lab.

The Ideas Lab on Fabrikstrasse is an open project and creative space that is available free of charge to all students, researchers and employees of UniBE.

An inspiring place for #EngagedUniBE!