Prof. Dr. Bernhard A. Koch was born in 1966 in Feldkirch, Austria. He studied law at the University of Innsbruck (Mag. iur, 1989), the University of Tübingen (Dr. iur, summa cum laude, 1992), and the University of Michigan (LL.M., 1993). He completed his Habilitation in Private Law and Comparative Law in 1998.

Prof. Koch began his academic career as an assistant at the University of Innsbruck in 1985 and was awarded tenure in 1999. Following a two-year leave to work at the European Centre of Tort and Insurance Law (ECTIL) and the Austrian Academy of Sciences, he returned to Innsbruck in 2003, where he has since held a Chair in Civil Law. He currently serves as Academic Director of the University of Innsbruck's Medical Law Programme and as Dean of Studies of the Faculty of Law.

From 2004 to 2010, he served as Vice Director of the Institute for European Tort Law (ETL) at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. He is a long-standing member of the European Group on Tort Law and was also a member of the EU Expert Group on Liability for New Technologies.

His main areas of research include Tort Law, Contract Law, Real Property Law, Family Law, and Conflict of Laws.