The activities of BERGVINK are based on a broad concept of inclusion. The institute understands that inclusion is not to be equated with the integration of the 'excluded' and does not refer to only one dimension of heterogeneity, but that inclusion enables all people in their diversity and individuality to participate fully in society and in education. This common understanding is both the starting point and the object of research activity at the Institute and guides the discourses on content.

In order to do justice to these guiding principles, BERGVINK bases all its activities on the goals of enabling participation, creating more visibility for diversity, and identifying and questioning segregation and exclusion mechanisms. The institute explicitly focuses on multi-perspective approaches. In this way, inclusion-related research is intended to contribute to shaping an inclusive society in its broadest sense.

The research activities of the institute include basic and developmental research on the current situation, framework conditions, perspectives and conditions for success of 'Inclusion in Education and Society':

In this context, the field of education is to be thought of both in and out of school, formally and informally. Accordingly, the object of education-related research would be inclusion in the classroom, in school life, in the context of out-of-school places of learning, in early childhood education, and in adult education.

The field of upbringing broadens and complements this perspective. Here, both family aspects and institutional perspectives are focused on, considering the holistic development of children and adolescents. Specifically, in addition to research in schools, research in the areas of inclusion in the context of family, daycare, leisure-time activities, but also in relation to supporting structures such as inclusion-promoting offers of offices, non-profit organizations and associations, churches, etc. is considered. The perspective here is that the goal of education must be to stimulate individual development towards self-determined participation and thus active co-design of a democratic inclusive society.

The area of society expands the perspective once again by thinking of inclusion as a task and challenge for society as a whole, which cannot be accomplished by educational institutions such as daycare centers and schools alone. Here, perspectives from business, politics and culture are deliberately brought in to explore and promote the development of an inclusive society.

Inspired by the successful cooperation and the results of the interdisciplinary research within the framework of the BRIDGES project, the desire arose to consolidate and expand the cooperation structures and to permanently place the topic of inclusion in the focus of joint research. Thus, the idea of founding a separate research institute on the topic of inclusion in education, upbringing and society was born.

In December 2020, the founding members Prof. Dr. Britta Baumert (Religious Education with special regard to subject didactics), Prof. Dr. Monika Angela Budde (German Didactics), Prof. Dr. Martina Döhrmann (Didactics of Mathematics), Prof. Dr. Michael Ewig (Didactics of Biology) and Prof. Dr. Marie-Christine Vierbuchen (Inclusive Education) submitted the application to establish a research institute. On January 27, 2021, the constituent meeting of BERGVINK took place, in which the foundations for the future activities of the institute were decided. In the following months the institute homepage, the rules of procedure and the target agreement for the coming years were created.

With the signing of the target agreement on August 12, 2021 by the President of the University of Vechta, Burghart Schmidt, and the five founding members, the BERGVINK then officially began its activities.