Internationalisation of Education
Just like the city of Bergen, the University of Bergen (UiB) has had an international outlook since its foundation, and it is strongly committed to international collaboration in education. Judged by the proportion of incoming and outgoing international students, the University of Bergen is the most international university in Norway.
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The University of Bergen has many bilateral collaboration agreements with renowned universities around the world. UiB is a member of several European university networks, including the Coimbra Group and the Utrecht network. The university participates in various programmes for the internationalisation of higher education, including the Quota Programme, the Erasmus Programme, Erasmus Mundus, the Nordplus and Nordlys networks and the NOMA programme.
The academic profile of the University of Bergen has two major focuses. One is marine research - the city of Bergen is considered to be one of the largest marine science centres in Northern Europe. The other is global development research, and the university has earned a distinguished reputation both in Norway and abroad for its excellent, result-driven collaboration on research and education with universities in developing countries.
The University of Bergen has been actively involved in the initiatives of the European Union, and has been successful in relation to the EU's higher education programmes. Institutional cooperation with institutions in Asia, Africa and Latin America is also important.
The Coimbra Group
Founded in 1985 and formally constituted by charter in 1987, the Coimbra Group is an association of long-established European multidisciplinary universities of high international standard. The network is committed to creating special academic and cultural ties in order to promote internationalisation, academic collaboration, excellence in learning and research, and service to society for the benefit of its member universities. The Coimbra Group also aims to influence European educational policy and to develop best practices by sharing experiences.
The Utrecht Network
The Utrecht Network is active in the areas of student mobility, staff exchange, internationalisation of curricula, joint curricula, double degrees, joint PhDs and summer schools, in addition to joint efforts in marketing its best Master's programmes internationally. The group consists of twenty-eight members (representing thirty-one universities), which cooperate on internationalisation in the broadest sense of the word. The members of the group are all prominent, broadly-based educational institutions that take cultural responsibility in addition to their academic and educational responsibilities.
Membership of the Utrecht Network has long been important for UiB as a platform for student exchange, but the focus has shifted in recent years to collaboration on activities such as joint programmes, Erasmus staff exchanges and joint promotion of study programmes.
