His work has focused on logic and the theoretical foundations of software engineering, especially on formal methods for system design.
[1] He was educated at the Montessori Lyceum Rotterdam (gymnasium beta) and then studied mathematics at Utrecht University, starting in 1969.
After an MSc he wrote a PhD thesis, defended in 1976, on recursion theory in higher types, under the supervision of Dirk van Dalen.
Bergstra held posts at the Institute of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science of the University of Leiden (1976–82), and the Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) in Amsterdam.
This resulted in them becoming friends and going on to discuss and hone several parts of Promise theory together on mutual visits between Norway and the Netherlands.
[citation needed] He set up the new computer science curriculum at Leiden in 1976, and for cognitive artificial intelligence at Utrecht University in 1989.