University of Liège


The University of Liège, or ULiège, is a major public research university of the French Community of Belgium founded in 1817 and based in Liège, Belgium. Its official language is French.
Since the 1970s, its main campus is located on the Sart-Tilman hill, about ten kilometers south of Liège, but the university retains its historic headquarters and numerous administrative offices in the city center, as well as four of its eleven faculties. It has secondary installments throughout the Liège Province; in addition to Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech which is based in Gembloux, and the Department of Environmental Sciences and Management in Arlon. As a research intensive university, it also operates multiple facilities abroad: the STARESO oceanography station in Corsica, the Jungfraujoch weather station in Switzerland, the KATABATA stations in Greenland, as well as scientific stations and observatories in Chile, in Morocco, and in Tenerife, Spain.
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History

The university was founded in 1817 by William I of the Netherlands, then King of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, and by his Minister of Education, Anton Reinhard Falck. The foundation of the university was the result of a long intellectual tradition which dates back to the origins of the Prince-Bishopric of Liège. Beginning in the eleventh century, the influence of the principality attracted students and prominent scientists and philosophers, such as Petrarch, to study in its libraries. The reputation of its medieval schools gave the city the reputation as a new Athens.
A 17 March 1808 decree by Napoleon I concerning the organization of an imperial university indicated Liège as the site of a new academy to be composed of a Faculty of Arts and a Faculty of Science—the first university charter for Liège. Ultimately, Liège owes its university to William I of the Netherlands, who remembered the city's prestigious legacy of teaching and culture when he decided to establish a new university on Walloon soil.
Nearly 200 years later, settled to some extent in the district of Liège, the University of Liège belongs to the French community of Belgium. The university is located at the edge of the river Meuse, in the center of the Island, the Latin Quarter of Liège. In 2009, the Agronomical University of Gembloux, based in Gembloux, in the Province of Namur, integrated ULiège. It has adopted a new name for academics as well as research, namely Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech.

Chronology

Organisation

The rector of ULiège is Professor Anne-Sophie Nyssen, who succeeded Professor Pierre Wolper in 2022, becoming the first woman to hold this position.  Anne Girin has been the university's Administrator since September 1, 2020. She replaced Laurent Despy and became the first woman to hold the position.
The University of Liège counts:
  • 24,522 students
  • * 4,600 foreign students
  • 4,300 employees
  • * 2,800 faculty members
  • * 1,300 administrative and technical support staff
ULiège comprises 11 faculties:

Campus

Since the 1970s, ULiège's main campus has been the hill, a vast planned community campus located about ten kilometers south from the center of Liège. However, the university has kept its headquarters and many administrative facilities in the city centre, as well as the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, the Institutes of Zoology, Anatomy, the HEC Liège Management School and the newly incorporated Faculty of Architecture.
The Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech campus and faculty are located in the city of Gembloux, Namur Province, and Faculty of Science Department of Environmental Science and Management is located in Arlon, Luxembourg Province.
The university also owns a scientific research station in the Belgian High Fens since 1924, the STARESO oceanography station in Calvi, Corsica, France, a meteorological station and the Sphinx Observatory on the Jungfraujoch, Switzerland, since 1950 and research stations and observatories in Chile, Morocco and Tenerife, Spain.

Notable alumni

For full list, see University of Liège alumni.

Notable faculty

Honorary doctorate