News Archive

By mLAB and Swiss Science Film Academy

At Cinema REX Bern

The University of Bern honors commitment to equal opportunities and this year awards the Institute of Geography (GIUB) the Prix Lux for its long-standing commitment to equal opportunities and its pioneering achievements for an inclusive scientific culture. The university equal opportunity prize Prix Lux was awarded for the fifth time on November 21, 2021 - fortunately again in person in front of an audience, which was not possible in 2020 due to the pandemic. A wide range of nominations were received again this year, and the jury had a hard time to choose. The award was renamed from the Equality Award to the Equal Opportunity Award to reflect the importance of overall diversity in addition to gender equality.

This year, GIUB receives the Prix Lux for its comprehensive efforts to create an inclusive scientific culture. For more than ten years, GIUB has been engaged in a variety of ways, and we are implementing a number of measures that are leading to cultural and institutional change toward greater gender equity and equal opportunities. However, there is still much to be done, such as how to balance part-time work and increasing workloads, how to evaluate job-sharing applications, and how to make institutes like GIUB more accessible to all.

The University of Bern reports on the award ceremony in Uni Aktuell at this link (in German).

The GIUB Equal Opportunity Commission would like to thank all students and staff for their support over the years.

The results and products of the study "Hydrological principles of climate change (Hydro-CH2018)" were presented to the public at the Eventforum Bern. GIUB researchers were also involved in the study of the 'National Centre for Climate Services' (NCCS) under the direction of the FOEN, including Prof. em. Dr. Rolf Weingartner, Prof. Dr. Olivia Romppainen-Martius and Dr. Regula Mülchi, who modeled the changes in mean discharges of Swiss watercourses under the influence of climate change until the end of the century as part of her dissertation.

The results of the study were prepared for the interactive data and analysis platform of the Hydrological Atlas of Switzerland (HADES) and are freely available at hydromapscc.ch. The HADES was developed at GIUB and has been produced here since 1989.
 

A research team led by Alexander Groos, Heinz Veit and Naki Akçar, in collaboration with colleagues from ETH Zurich, the University of Marburg and the University of Ankara, used the Ethiopian Highlands as a test site to investigate the extent and impact of regional cooling on tropical mountains during the last glacial period. The results have been published in the scientific journals Science Advances and Earth Surface Dynamics and are presented in a media release from the University of Bern.