The University of Bergen is a research-intensive state university located in Bergen, Norway. The university today has over 4,000 employees and 18,000 students. It was established by an act of parliament in 1946 based on several older scientific institutions dating back to 1825, and is Norway's second oldest university. It is considered one of Norway's four "established universities" and has faculties and programmes in all the fields of a classical university including fields that are traditionally reserved by law for established universities, including medicine and law. It is also one of Norway's leading universities in many natural sciences, including marine research and climate research. It is consistently ranked in the top one percentage among the world's universities, usually among the best 200 universities and among the best 10 or 50 universities worldwide in some fields such as earth and marine sciences. It is part of the Coimbra Group and of the U5 group of Norway's oldest and highest ranked universities.

• Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design
• The Art Academy – Department of Contemporary Art
• The Grieg Academy - Department of Music
• Department of Design
• Faculty of Humanities
• Centre for Medieval Studies
• Centre for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities
• Centre for Women and Gender Research
• Department of Archeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion 
• Department of Foreign Languages (Arabic, English, French, Italian, Japanese, Russian, Spanish, German and single courses in Chinese) 
• Department of Linguistics, Literary and Aesthetical studies 
• Department of Philosophy and First Semester Studies 
• The Grieg Academy – Department of Music
• Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences
• Department of Biological Sciences
• Department of Chemistry
• Department of Earth Science
• Department of Informatics
• Department of Mathematics
• Department of Physics and Technology
• Geophysical Institute
• Faculty of Medicine
• Department of Biomedicine
• Department of Clinical Medicine
• Department of Clinical Science
• Department of Clinical Dentistry
• Department of Global Public Health and Primary Care
• Centre for International Health
• Laboratory Animal Facility
• Faculty of Social Sciences
• The Faculty of Social Sciences
• Department of Administration and Organization Theory
• Department of Comparative Politics
• Department of Economics
• Department of Geography
• Department of Information Science and Media Studies
• Department of Social Anthropology
• Department of Sociology
• Centre for Development Studies
• Centre for Gender Studies
• Centre for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies

The university traces its roots to several earlier scientific and scholarly institutions founded in Bergen. Academic activity had taken place in Bergen since the founding of Bergen Cathedral School in 1153, the Seminarium Fredericianum in 1750 and the establishment of the Royal Norwegian Naval Academy in 1817. Academia and higher education would also be significantly advanced in the city with the establishment of Bergen Museum, later renamed University Museum of Bergen, in 1825. Founded by Wilhelm Frimann Christie and Jacob Neumann, the museum became a venue for both research and education specialized on natural science, and featured prominent researcher like Michael Sars, Daniel Cornelius Danielssen and Fridtjof Nansen.