The University of Bern has eight faculties:

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UNIBE provides several services on campus to students including advisement and counseling, and extracurricular programming in sports and the arts. UNIBE departments also host several student organizations and special interest groups. Students and faculty also have access to Unibe's Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center .

The University of Bern (: , : , : ) is a in the capital of . It was founded in 1834. It is regulated and financed by the . It is a comprehensive university offering a broad choice of courses and programs in eight and some 150 . With around 19,000 , the University of Bern is the third largest university in Switzerland.

The University of Bern operates at three levels: university, faculties and institutes. Other organizational units include interfaculty and general university units. The university's highest governing body is the Senate, which is responsible for issuing statutes, rules and regulations. Directly answerable to the Senate is the University Board of Directors, the governing body for university management and coordination. The board comprises the rector, the vice-rectors and the administrative director. The structures and functions of the University Board of Directors and the other organizational units are regulated by the Universities Act.

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The University of Bern had 19,297 students in 2022. Of these, 42 percent (8,056) were registered in and 24 percent (4,610) in programs, 17 percent (3,371) were , and another 17 percent (3,260) were enrolled in continuing education programs. There were 1,667 bachelor's degree graduation, 1,603 master's degree graduations and 725 PhD student graduations in 2021. For some time now, the university has had more female than male students. At the end of 2022, women accounted for 59% of students.

The University of Bern does not have a single large on the edge of the city, but has consistently pursued the principle of a university in the city. Most institutes and clinics are still in the Länggasse, the traditional university district adjoining the city centre, within walking distance of one another. The Faculty of Theology and various institutes in the Faculty of Humanities are now housed in an old chocolate factory (the ), and in 2005 the former women's hospital was refurbished to serve as a university centre for institutes in the Faculty of Law and Department of Economics (the ). The vonRoll site, another former factory building, is in the process of being refurbished to house the Faculty of Human Sciences and the Department of Social Sciences.

The roots of the University of Bern go back to the sixteenth century, when a collegiate school was needed to train new pastors after the . As part of its reorganization of higher education, the government of Bern transformed the existing theological college into an with four faculties in 1805. Henceforth, it was possible to study not only theology in Bern, but also and .

As in other countries of Europe, nineteenth-century politics in Switzerland were dominated by the struggle between and currents. The liberals gained control of the Canton of Bern in 1831 and in 1834 turned the academy into a university, with an academic staff of 45 to teach 167 students. Owing to the political situation, it was not until the in 1848 that the university was able to embark on a period of peaceful development. Between 1885 and 1900, the number of students doubled from 500 to 1,000. As a result, at the turn of the twentieth century the University of Bern was the largest university in Switzerland. This rapid growth reflected the university's attraction for foreign students, in particular and , who accounted for half of the total enrollment. It was also Russian female students who in the 1870s won the right for women to study.

The following prominent persons studied at the University of Bern:

UNIBE's campus is located in the historic Gascue neighborhood in the city of Santo Domingo. The main building is the former home of Dominican intellectual Manuel Arturo Peña Battle. The rest of the campus consists of modern buildings that surround the historic home.

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After , a growing number of voices called for the expansion of tertiary education in Switzerland. The rapid growth in the 1950s and 1960s (enrollment at the University of Bern had already reached 5,000 in 1968) – generated pressure for expansion. The completely revised University Act of 1996 transformed the University of Bern from an administrative division of the Department of Education of the Canton of Bern into an autonomous institution. a legal entity in its own right. The Act clearly defined the competencies of the university and of the state. The university passed another milestone in 1992, when its enrollment reached 10,000.

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The ushered in the era of credits and the bachelor's and master's degree structure. The university set strategic research priorities, such as , and promoted inter-university cooperation. At the same time, the university reorganized its faculties. With the amendment to the University Act in summer 2010, the University Board of Directors acquired the right to choose its own ordinary professors and keep its own accounts separate from the state.

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The University Board of Directors formulated a strategy in 2013, whixh builds on the previous strategy of 2006, the 2012 mission statement, and the performance mandate for the university from the Cantonal Government.

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The medical faculties of the Universities of Bern and Basel have formed a strategic alliance in the fields of , , and . The Vetsuisse Faculty was created in 2006 through the merger of the Faculties of veterinary medicine of the Universities of Bern and . The Humanities Faculty is comparable to the arts and sciences departments of American universities and offers majors in the three areas of art and culture, archaeology and history, and languages and literature. The Faculty of Science focuses on the natural and life sciences. The Human Sciences Faculty was founded in 2005 and offers study programmes in education, sports and psychology.