Ghent University

Foundation, in the 19th century

The university in Ghent was opened on October 9, 1817, with JC van Rotterdam serving as the first rector. In the first year, it had 190 students and 16 professors. The original four faculties consisted of Humanities (Letters), Law, Medicine and Science, and the language of instruction was Latin. The university was founded by King William I as part of a policy to stem the intellectual and academic lag in the southern part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, later to become Belgium.

After peaking at a student population of 414, the number of students declined quickly following the Belgian Revolution. At this time, the Faculties of Humanities and Science were broken from the university, but they were restored five years later, in 1835. Ghent University played a big role in the foundation of modern organic chemistry. Friedrich August Kekulé (7 September 1829 – 13 July 1896) unraveled the structure of benzene at Ghent and Adolf von Baeyer (Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Adolf von Baeyer), a student of August Kekulé, made seminal contributions to organic chemistry.

In 1882, Sidonie Verhelst became the first female student at the university.

French became the language of instruction, taking the place of Latin, after the 1830 Revolution. In 1903, the Flemish politician Lodewijk De Raet led a successful campaign to begin instruction in Dutch, and the first courses were begun in 1906.

Painting of the establishment of the State University of Ghent in 1817 when the city was under Dutch rule

Developments since the 20th century

During World War I, the occupying German administration conducted Flamenpolitik and turned Ghent University into the first Dutch-speaking university in Belgium. A Flemish Institute (Vlaemsche Hoogeschool), commonly known as Von Bissing University, was founded in 1916 but was disestablished after the war and French language was fully reinstated. In 1923, Cabinet Minister Pierre Nolf put forward a motion to definitively establish the university as a Dutch-speaking university, and this was realized in 1930. August Vermeylen served as the first rector of a Dutch-language university in Belgium.^[1]

In the Second World War, the German administration of the university attempted to create a German orientation, removing faculty members and installing loyal activists. However, the university became the focal point for many resistance members as the war progressed.

Ghent University 1910 - Studentenvereniging Société Académique d'Histoire

After the war, the university became a much larger institution, following government policy of democratizing higher education in Flanders during the 1950s and 1960s. By 1953, there were more than 3,000 students, and by 1969 more than 11,500. The number of faculties increased to eleven, starting with Applied Sciences in 1957. It was followed by Economics and Veterinary Medicine in 1968, Psychology and Pedagogy, as well as Bioengineering, in 1969, and Pharmaceutical Sciences. The faculty of Politics and Social Sciences is the most recent addition, in 1992.

In the 1960s to 1980s, there were several student demonstrations at Ghent University, notably around the Blandijn site, which houses the Faculty of Arts & Philosophy.^[2] The severest demonstrations took place in 1969 in the wake of May 1968.

The university officially changed its name from Rijksuniversiteit Gent (RUG) to Universiteit Gent (UGent) in 1991 following an increased grant of autonomy by the government of the Flemish Community.

In 2017, Rik Van de Walle succeeded Anne De Paepe as rector.

Organisation and structure

Ghent University consists of eleven Faculties with over 130 individual departments. In addition, the university maintains the Zwijnaarde science park and Greenbridge science park.

List of faculties

Faculteitsbibliotheek Letteren en Wijsbegeerte UGent

• Faculty of Arts and Philosophy^[3]
• Faculty of Bio-science Engineering^[4]
• Faculty of Law^[5]
• Faculty of Sciences^[6]
• Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences^[7]
• Faculty of Engineering and Architecture^[8]
• Faculty of Economics and Business Administration^[9]
• Faculty of Veterinary Medicine^[10]
• Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences^[11]
• Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences^[12]
• Faculty of Political and Social Sciences^[13]

Library

Ugent boekentoren 675

Standing on the Blandijnberg, the Boekentoren houses the Ghent University Library, which contains nearly 3 million volumes. The University Library has joined the Google Books Library Project. Among other notable collections, it preserves Papyrus 30, an early manuscript of the Greek New Testament.

Reputation & rankings

Ghent University consistently ranks among the best universities in the world (top 100). Most recently, in 2017, it was ranked, globally, 69th by the Academic Ranking of World Universities (or Shanghai ranking)^[14] and 125th by QS World University Rankings.^[15] For 2018, Ghent University has been ranked, worldwide, 88th by U.S. News & World Report^[16] and 107th by Times Higher Education.^[17]

International relations

The university maintains many partnerships within Belgium, across Europe, and throughout the world. For instance, Ghent University supports the Belgian Co-ordinated Collections of Micro-organisms and the Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie. Within Europe, it is a member of the Santander Network and the U4 Network. It also participates in the Conference of European Schools for Advanced Engineering Education and Research. In addition, the University cooperates with numerous universities for the Erasmus and Erasmus Mundus programs; within the framework of the latter, it heads the International Master of Science in Rural Development.

Outside of Europe, Ghent University conducts exchange programs on all six continents.^[18]

Associated contributions and innovations

Ghent University has been instrumental in the development of COinS and Unipept.

Notable alumni

Notable faculty

• S.N. Balagangadhara (born 1952), comparative science of cultures
• George de Hevesy (1885–1966), Nobel Prize winner, Chemistry
• Jozef De Ley, the founder of the Laboratory of Microbiology at the Faculty of Sciences
• Jan De Maeseneer (born 1952), medicine, family medicine
• Georges De Moor (born 1953), medicine, medical informatics
• Walter Fiers (born 1931), molecular biologist
• Corneille Heymans (1892–1968), physiologist (Nobel prize winner)
• Joseph Plateau (1801–1883), physicist
• Xavier Saelens (born 1965), biotechnology
• Jeff Schell (1935-2003), biotech pioneer
• Erwin Schrödinger (1887–1961), physicist (Nobel Prize winner), visiting scholar
• Johan Rudolf Thorbecke (1798–1872), statesman
• Alexander Van Dijk, pioneer in rare diseases
• Marc Van Montagu (born 1933), biotech pioneer
• August Vermeylen (1872–1945), author, art historian, statesman
• Adolf von Baeyer (1835–1917), chemist (Nobel prize winner), visiting scholar
• August Kekule (1829–1896), chemist

List of rectors