Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

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Catholic University of Leuven
Seal of the University of Leuven
Latin: Universitas Catholica Lovaniensis
Motto: Sedes Sapientiae (Seat of Wisdom, Seat of Knowledge)
Established 1425 / 1834 / 1970
Type: Private Catholic
Endowment: 506.8 million EUR
Rector: Marc Vervenne (2005- )
Staff: 8,107
Students: 31.447
Doctoral students: 427
Location Leuven, Belgium
Campus: Leuven, Kortrijk
Affiliations: Coimbra Group
LERU
Website: www.kuleuven.be
Data as of 2005

The Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (in short K.U.Leuven) was founded in 1970 as the Flemish successor institution to the oldest university in Belgium (see Catholic University of Leuven). Centrally located in the town of Leuven in Flanders, the K.U.Leuven is a Dutch-speaking university. The Katholieke Universiteit Leuven also has a campus at Kortrijk, formerly known as Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Afdeling Kortrijk (KULAK). Worldwide, however, especially in the English speaking world, the university is more commonly known by its anglicized French name 'Louvain'. Its predecessor institutions, the first of them dating back to 1425, contributed greatly to the development of Catholic theology.

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In 2006, more than 30,000 students were attending classes at the 14 faculties of the K.U.Leuven, about 4000 of whom were foreign students, many of whom were able to follow courses offered in English. Most courses, however, are taught in 'Flemish' - the smoother version of Dutch spoken in Belgium. The K.U.Leuven is a member of the Coimbra Group (a network of leading European universities) as well as of the LERU Group (League of European Research Universities). Since August 2005, the university has been led by Marc Vervenne who replaced former rector André Oosterlinck. The Belgian archbishop, Cardinal Godfried Danneels is the current Grand Chancellor and a member of the university board.

The K.U.Leuven is dedicated to Mary, the mother of Jesus, under her traditional attribute as 'Seat of Wisdom', and organizes an annual celebration on 2 February in her honour. On that day, the university also awards its honorary doctorates.

In polarized Flanders, the K.U.Leuven is nominally Catholic, whereas the University of Ghent and the University of Antwerp are officially neutral on issues of religious/philosophical orientation, and the Free University of Brussels is Freethinking.[1] However, nowadays these polarized classifications are less relevant than they once were. In fact, the K.U.Leuven is not Catholic in any real sense, certainly not in the sense of adhering always to Church teachings. In this respect, K.U.Leuven is more often regarded as being 'progressive' in relation to other Catholic universities worldwide. Students and staff tend to choose a university rather for pragmatic reasons - such as the quality of education, the distance to the campus or even the offered opportunities - than purely for religious or philosophical reasons.

K.U.Leuven is a strongly research oriented university, and among its achievements is to have featured among the top European universities in terms of scientific output (although not yet impact).[2] Rijndael, the cipher chosen as the Advanced Encryption Standard, was developed at K.U.Leuven.

Castle Arenberg, part of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium.
Castle Arenberg, part of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium.
For the history of the pre-1970 university see Catholic University of Leuven#History.

In 1968 tensions between the Dutch-speaking and French-speaking communities led to the splitting of the bilingual Catholic University of Leuven into two "sister" universities, with the Dutch-language university becoming a fully-functioning independent institution in Leuven in 1970, and the Université Catholique de Louvain decamping to a greenfield campus site in the French-speaking part of Belgium.

In 1972 the K.U. Leuven set up a separate entity, "Leuven Research & Development" (LRD), to support industrial and commercial applications of university research. It has led to numerous spin-offs, such as the technology companies Option and Metris, and manages tens of millions of euros in investments and venture capital.

On 11 July 2002 the K.U.Leuven became the dominant institution in the "K.U.Leuven Association" (see below).

For the history of the university library prior to 1970, see Catholic University of Leuven#Library.

When the university was split, those books that could not be divided otherwise (e.g. according to the wishes of the benefactors who donated them) were divided as follows: those with an odd-numbered shelfmark stayed in Leuven, while the even-numbered ones moved to Louvain-la-Neuve. This gave rise to the widespread myth that every other volume was separated - splitting up runs of journals and volumes of encyclopedias - but since such series each had a single shelfmark this was never in fact the case. The library now owns about one million works.

The K.U. Leuven's Faculty of Theology library is among the most comprehensive in the world.

For pre-1970 alumni see Catholic University of Leuven#Notable alumni.

Famous recipients of honorary doctorates at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven include:

Notable divisions of the university include the Higher Institute of Philosophy and the Rega Institute for Medical Research.

The university is a member of the Flanders Interuniversity Institute of Biotechnology (VIB). The Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre (IMEC) is a spin-off company of the university.

Since July 2002, thirteen higher education institutes have formed the K.U.Leuven Association. The members are[3]:

Toledo, which started in September 2001, was gradually developed into the central electronic learning environment at the Association K.U.Leuven.

The word is an acronym for "TOetsen en LEren Doeltreffend Ondersteunen" (English: effectively supporting testing and learning). It is the collective name for a number of commercial software programs and tools, such as Blackboard. The project offers the Question Mark Perception assignment software to all institution members and has implemented the Ariadne KPS to reuse digital learning objects inside the Blackboard environment.

  1. ^ The Vrije Universiteit Brussel explicitly subscribes to a principle of Freethought enunciated by Henri Poincaré
  2. ^ [1]
  3. ^ Associations Members. Retrieved March 4, 2007.

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