23.12.2025
Universities play a key role in understanding diversity as a resource and creating fair study conditions that recognize the right to academic education for all.
In recent years, The Bern University of Teacher Education (PHBern) has laid important foundations and has gained valuable experience in this process. With its pilot project for inclusive diploma training for inclusion specialists (F-INK), it has developed a programme that is unique in Switzerland, enabling people with disabilities to train as professionals in their own area of expertise and contribute their perspectives to education, research and practice.
With a new Movetia project on inclusive higher education development, PHBern is now taking the next step and expanding this experience to include an international perspective.
In addition, national exchange is also being strengthened as part of a swissuniversities project that further promotes the transfer of expertise in the field of inclusive higher education development.
Learning internationally – transferring insights to Switzerland
In the Movetia project Inclusive Higher Education: International Perspectives and Cooperations the inclusive development of cultures, structures, and practices at universities is being examined in collaboration with partner institutions in Canada and Europe, and implications for the Swiss context are being identified.
The project will enable representatives of PHBern to gain direct insights into the work of Concordia University and Inclusion Alberta, which are leaders in promoting inclusive higher education and transition to the labor market, during a study trip in 2026.
An international conference in Bern in 2027 will also provide a unique opportunity to engage directly with Canadian experts and other stakeholders from the fields of education, politics, and business to discuss new ways of achieving inclusive higher education in Switzerland.
Accessibility of new knowledge
In addition, the swissuniversities project Inclusive Higher Education: Learning and Teaching promotes continuous exchange between initiatives and programs for inclusive higher education development throughout Switzerland. A central element of this is the creation of a digital platform where examples of good practice, didactic concepts, tools, and reflection materials are pooled, further developed, and made accessible to different target groups at universities.
Findings from international exchange and further national networking are incorporated into the development of PHBern, for example in the further development of the diploma training for inclusion specialists (F-INK) and the CAS ‘Designing Inclusive Education’, which will start in October 2026. In this way, PHBern is strengthening its role as a driving force for a university that not only recognises diversity, but also anchors it structurally and actively shapes it.
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