University of Bern

The University of Bern (Universität Bern), founded in 1834, is a comprehensive public research university in the Swiss capital with around 16,000 students across eight faculties, ranked #91 in the QS World University Rankings 2025. Its public, machine-readable footprint centers on BORIS Portal, the institutional repository and research information system, which runs DSpace 7.6.1 and exposes both a REST API and an OAI-PMH endpoint. The University Library also publishes guidance on data-mining APIs and maintains open-source tools on GitHub. There is no single unified, self-service developer portal; administrative, course, and identity systems are gated behind institutional affiliation and Swiss federated identity (SWITCH edu-ID / Shibboleth).

3 APIs 0 Features

EducationHigher EducationUniversitySwitzerlandResearchOpen AccessInstitutional RepositoryLibrary

Sources

---
aid: university-of-bern
name: University of Bern
description: >-
  The University of Bern (Universität Bern), founded in 1834, is a comprehensive
  public research university in the Swiss capital with around 16,000 students
  across eight faculties, ranked #91 in the QS World University Rankings 2025.
  Its public, machine-readable footprint centers on BORIS Portal, the
  institutional repository and research information system, which runs DSpace
  7.6.1 and exposes both a REST API and an OAI-PMH endpoint. The University
  Library also publishes guidance on data-mining APIs and maintains open-source
  tools on GitHub. There is no single unified, self-service developer portal;
  administrative, course, and identity systems are gated behind institutional
  affiliation and Swiss federated identity (SWITCH edu-ID / Shibboleth).
type: Index
position: Consumer
access: 3rd-Party
image: https://kinlane-productions.s3.amazonaws.com/apis-json/apis-json-logo.jpg
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/university-of-bern/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
tags:
  - Education
  - Higher Education
  - University
  - Switzerland
  - Research
  - Open Access
  - Institutional Repository
  - Library
created: '2026-06-03'
modified: '2026-06-03'
specificationVersion: '0.19'
apis:
  - aid: university-of-bern:boris-rest
    name: BORIS Portal DSpace REST API
    description: >-
      BORIS Portal is the institutional repository and research information
      system of the University of Bern, running DSpace 7.6.1 with the DSpace-CRIS
      extension. Its REST API (HAL/JSON) exposes communities, collections, items,
      bitstreams, and research-entity metadata for publications, research data,
      projects, and researchers. Confirmed live returning HTTP 200.
    humanURL: https://boris-portal.unibe.ch/
    baseURL: https://boris-portal.unibe.ch/server/api
    tags: [ Repository, Research, Open Access, DSpace, REST, Metadata ]
    properties:
      - type: Documentation
        url: https://www.ub.unibe.ch/services/open_science/boris_portal/index_eng.html
      - type: BaseURL
        url: https://boris-portal.unibe.ch/server/api
  - aid: university-of-bern:boris-oai
    name: BORIS Portal OAI-PMH Endpoint
    description: >-
      OAI-PMH 2.0 harvesting endpoint for BORIS Portal, allowing metadata
      harvesting of the University of Bern's research outputs. Confirmed live
      (verb=Identify returns repository name "BORIS Portal", protocol version
      2.0, earliest datestamp 2021-08-26).
    humanURL: https://www.ub.unibe.ch/services/open_science/boris_portal/index_eng.html
    baseURL: https://boris-portal.unibe.ch/server/oai/request
    tags: [ Repository, OAI-PMH, Harvesting, Metadata, Open Access ]
    properties:
      - type: Documentation
        url: https://www.ub.unibe.ch/services/open_science/boris_portal/index_eng.html
      - type: BaseURL
        url: https://boris-portal.unibe.ch/server/oai/request
  - aid: university-of-bern:library-tdm-apis
    name: University Library Data-Mining APIs Guide
    description: >-
      The University of Bern Library publishes curated guidance on
      Application Programming Interfaces for text and data mining, covering
      freely accessible and licensed third-party data services (OpenAlex,
      CrossRef, OAI-PMH, IIIF, SRU and others). This is documentation/guidance
      maintained by the library rather than a University-of-Bern-operated API;
      access to licensed sources may require an individual API key and
      institutional affiliation.
    humanURL: https://www.ub.unibe.ch/services/digital_scholarship/apis/index_eng.html
    tags: [ Library, Documentation, Text and Data Mining, OAI-PMH, IIIF ]
    properties:
      - type: Documentation
        url: https://www.ub.unibe.ch/services/digital_scholarship/apis/index_eng.html
common:
  - type: Website
    url: https://www.unibe.ch/index_eng.html
  - type: GitHub
    url: https://github.com/id-unibe-ch
  - type: SourceCode
    url: https://github.com/ub-unibe-ch
  - type: LinkedIn
    url: https://www.linkedin.com/school/university-of-bern/
  - type: Plans
    url: plans/university-of-bern-plans-pricing.yml
  - type: RateLimits
    url: rate-limits/university-of-bern-rate-limits.yml
  - type: FinOps
    url: finops/university-of-bern-finops.yml
  - type: Review
    url: review.yml
maintainers:
  - FN: Kin Lane
    email: [email protected]

University of Bern

APIs

BORIS Portal DSpace REST API

BORIS Portal OAI-PMH Endpoint

University Library Data-Mining APIs Guide

Semantic Vocabularies

University Of Bern Context

Resources

Sources