Ghent University

Ghent University is a Dutch-speaking public university in Ghent, Belgium, founded in 1817 by King William I when the city belonged to the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. After Belgian independence it became a state university and later a Flemish-language institution. It is a comprehensive civic university with eleven faculties in the historic center and on later sites including the Sterre campus and Ghent University Hospital.

Faculties include arts and philosophy, law, sciences, medicine and health sciences, engineering and architecture, economics, veterinary medicine, psychology and educational sciences, bioscience engineering, pharmaceutical sciences, and political and social sciences. Biotechnology around VIB-linked labs, engineering, veterinary medicine, and the university hospital are the main graduate magnets.

About 50,000 students enroll, with a substantial master's and doctoral share and students from more than 100 countries. Nobel figures tied to Ghent include Corneille Heymans in physiology or medicine and Maurice Maeterlinck in literature. Jacques Rogge, former president of the International Olympic Committee, studied medicine there.

Master's degrees follow the Bologna cycle, in Dutch and in English in many fields; doctorates are research theses through faculty doctoral schools, often on salaried contracts. The year is organized in semesters. Students live in the compact city, cycling between the medieval center and the science campuses.

In the Grad School Navigator directory, Ghent University lists 2 graduate programs in agriculture, food & forestry and biology, all of them master's programs. Ghent University holds rank 167 in the GSN Overall University Ranking.