Growing fast, UHasselt joins European alliance to research responsible consumption

The University of Hasselt is a Belgian public research university with campuses in Hasselt and Diepenbeek, Flanders. It has more than 6,700 students and 1,500 academic, administrative and technical staff. The university was officially established in 1971 as the Limburg Universitair Centrum (LUC) and changed its name to Hasselt University in 2005.

In the last decades, Hasselt University has undergone an enormous transformation. In 1991, the Limburg Business School (EHL) became the university's third faculty, now called "Business Economics". The curriculum was expanded to include Transportation Sciences (2004), Law (2008), Architecture, Interior Architecture, Engineering Technology, Rehabilitation Sciences (2013) and Commercial Sciences (2015).

In 2022, five additional programmes were launched: Social Sciences, Materiomics, Nursery and Midwifery, Healthcare Engineering and Engineering Technology: Computer Science.

Growing fast

UHasselt is ranked 449th in the QS World University Rankings of Best Universities Worldwide, out of a total of 1,422 listed institutions. It ranks in 7th position in Belgium. In the European Commission's U-Multirank 2022, UHasselt scores a top ten overall result, with fifteen excellent indicators.

UHasselt rector Bernard Vanheusden highlighted the exceptional performance recently.

"The richer our research becomes, the better our campus and our positions in the international rankings, which are now in the top three percent of the world," he said at the opening address of the academic year.

"Not only the number of faculties and students grow, but also the expectations from the region and therefore also our social role. More students are making themselves heard and Hasselt is completely different from the university of 20 years ago," Vanheusden noted.

Partnerships

Hasselt University has an extensive regional, national and global network of more than 500 partners, fostering collaboration in education, research and innovation.

In 2001, UHasselt/LUC and Maastricht University founded the Transnational University Limburg (tUL) – an international partnership involving two universities in two countries. tUL offers several programmes: Computer Science, Statistics, Biomedical Sciences and Law (a collaboration between tUL and KU Leuven).

European Alliance

This year Hasselt University joined the EURECA-PRO European University Alliance, a network that enables students and staff to study, teach and research responsible consumption and production. The long-term ambition of UHasselt and its partners in Austria, Germany, Greece, Poland, Romania and Spain, is to become the European hub for education and research in sustainability.

The next Eureca-Pro conference on "Responsible Consumption and Production" will take place in Spain, at the University of Leon from 19 to 21 October. The registration to participate will be open until September 20.

There will be conversations about challenges, innovative solutions for the technological, humanistic, economic, social and environmental dimensions of responsible consumption and production. The programme aims to be in tune with the Sustainable Development Goal 12.

(VIV)

#FlandersNewsService

© BELGA PHOTO (YORICK JANSENS)