Short answers, pulled from the story.
The University of Bern was founded in 1834, when liberals who had gained control of the Canton of Bern converted the existing academy into a university with an academic staff of 45 teaching 167 students. Its roots go back further, to a collegiate school established after the Reformation in the sixteenth century.
The University of Bern is the third largest university in Switzerland, with around 19,000 students. In the QS World University Rankings 2023 it ranked 120th globally, and in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings it ranked 94th in 2023.
Albert Einstein taught at the University of Bern beginning in 1908, delivering three semesters of theoretical physics. He was one of three notable figures associated with the university in 1908-09, alongside the Nobel laureate Theodor Kocher and the first fully empowered female professor in Europe, Anna Tumarkin.
Anna Tumarkin was a Russian-born philosopher appointed to an extraordinary professorship at the University of Bern in 1909. She became the first female professor at a European university with the right to examine doctoral and post-doctoral theses, a distinction that set her apart from earlier women who had taught in limited capacities at other institutions.
Theodor Kocher, a Bernese surgeon on the faculty, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1909. Alumni Sir Paul Nurse received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2001 after having studied at the university.
The University of Bern has strategic research strengths in climate science, health care, and space research. Its Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research has contributed lead authors to all IPCC assessment reports. The Physics Institute supplies instruments for NASA and ESA missions, and the Center for Space and Habitability led the European CHEOPS exoplanet telescope project.