University of Namur

The University campus is situated in the centre of the city of Namur, the capital of Wallonia (the French speaking region in Belgium), which is close to other major centres like Brussels. Students have direct access to the railway station, housing, shops, cinemas, theatres, sports facilities …

The UNamur campus has a lot to offer : a sports hall, a radio station , a choir , community housing for students sharing the same cultural or social project (« kots à projets »)… Various activities are organised on the campus such as sports competitions, tournamentsand challenges, introduction to music or plastic arts, language courses, theatre shows or concerts. Life is lived to the full in Namur

With 40 different programmes at the Bachelor, Master and Doctorate levels, the UNamur welcomes over 4,900 students in six Faculties: Arts, Law, Economics, Social Sciences and Business Administration, Computer Science, Medicine and Sciences. Its reputation is based on the quality of its education, the availability of its professors and sufficient resources to ensure maximum chances of success for each student: introduction to study techniques, preparation courses, small group work, course materials available on-line, personalized assessments…

The UNamur has redesigned its study programmes in line with the European harmonization of Higher Education (“Bologna Process”). The UNamur has widened the choice of its studies to reconcile both specificity and openness to social and human issues. Quality of study in Namur is a first class advantage for those who wish to discover a university on a human scale at the crossroads of Europe, as part of a study exchange programme or to prepare to enter professional life.

Research in Namur aims at balancing ethics and excellence. It is developed in 105 research units, active in arts, law, social and exact sciences, medicine and computer science. The UNamur excels in sectors such as nanotechnology, biotechnology, physics and chemistry of surfaces, engineering of information systems and data bases, legal questions raised by information and communication technologies, regional economics, economics of development and social representation of disabilities …univ3

The results of research within the UNamur have led to the deposit of numerous patents, technology transfers to industry and the creation of spin-off companies: EAT in 1999, Nanocyl in 2002, BioXpr and ReveR in 2003, StratiCell in 2005 …

Fully integrated in the city and region, the UNamur participates actively in their social and economic development. It promotes partnerships with the local economic partners, develops evening and weekend education programmes and life-long learning … It offers consultancy services and expertise to the public and private sectors. These activities extend well beyond the region or national borders through the ongoing collaboration with international bodies.

The UNamur aims to promote justice and grants special concern to those who are socially or economically fragile. To mention but a few research projects: the DFLS (Basic Rights and Social Cohesion Research Centre), and the CRED (Centre for Research in the Economics of Development), or studies on the issue of disabilities conducted by the Department of Psychology. The University also promotes education for development through its NGO, the FUCID (University Foundation for International Development Cooperation).

The UNamur has found many ways to enlarge its network of contacts and to ensure international recognition: high quality teaching and research, coherent policies facilitating the exchange of students, researchers and professors as well as the hosting of international students, membership in numerous international associations, participation in development projects.

The University of Namur (UNamur) is pleased to welcome you to this website, which will help you to learn about the university’s objectives and all aspects of life at our university, the services that it intends to provide in our society; more concretely, you will discover the men and women that work there, their educational and research programmes, as well as the events that mark the life of the university.

Recteur UNamurUniversity in the French speaking community of Belgium, the UNamur’s main objective is to “train students and researchers as responsible actors in society” [1]; and, since its foundation in 1831 by the Society of Jesus, it pays particular attention to the quality of the education it provides. The objective is to train men and women who, of course, are skilled in their discipline, but who also have interdisciplinary experience, are open to questions of conscience, sensitive to the fundamental problems that challenge our contemporaries, and can fully assume their responsibilities at the heart of society, on the horizon of our vast world!

The mission of every university is, not only to diffuse knowledge, but also produce new knowledge, which requires providing an essential place for research. Our laboratories and research centres aim to develop quality projects, by resolutely joining collaboration networks at the national and international levels. Whether this research is fundamental or more oriented, it is “meticulous in taking into account the human and social dimensions of science and technology”.

The knowledge developed at the university does not have the objective of remaining locked away, but on the contrary is to be used to serve society. This is how our university in Namur proactively integrates into its local and regional environment and shows itself to be concerned with satisfying the many requests it receives from public and private organisms, associations, and from many political, social, economic, and cultural actors.

The primary objective of the University is to train students and researchers as responsible actors in society. In this respect, the UNamur, working in the spirit of Europe’s academic tradition, is “an ideal meeting-ground for teachers capable of imparting their knowledge and well equipped to develop it by research and innovation and students entitled, able and willing to enrich their minds with that knowledge.”[1]

Teaching and research aim to diffuse current knowledge and to produce new knowledge. The UNamur privileges high-quality teaching mobilizing fundamental concepts of knowledge, as well as research which associates its pursuit of excellence with a long-term perspective.

In each discipline, the academic approach to teaching and research requires a permanent self-critical attitude with regard to its objectives and methods. The UNamur provides a platform for this critical search for knowledge and insists that the human and social dimensions of science and technology be taken into account. It seeks to overcome the division and fragmentation of knowledge by stimulating epistemological debate and interdisciplinary dialogue.

The universality of teaching and research and the globalization of society’s problems require universities to be open to each other. The UNamur has helped to establish and collaborates in various international networks, particularly in association with Jesuit universities.

Through its teaching and research and within the limits of its own identity and independence, the University questions society and answers society’s needs. Thus, the UNamur aims to be an agent of change in its region and to contribute to its cultural, social, political and economic development, in partnership with other local actors. Within the University and beyond its walls, it encourages the analysis of the major problems of society, in particular the inequality of opportunities between individuals and between peoples.