The Catholic University of Leuven is the largest and oldest university in Belgium. It is one of the founding members of the League of European Research Universities (LERU), which is also known as the European Ivy League that includes other leading European universities such as the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge, Leiden University, and the University of Edinburgh. At the same time, the Catholic University of Leuven is also a member of the Coimbra Group (CG), which is “an association of long-established European comprehensive, multidisciplinary universities of high international standard”. In 1968, the Catholic University of Leuven was split into two universities – the Dutch-speaking Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KUL), which stays at the original site, and the French-speaking Universite catholique de Louvain (UCL), which was established on new campuses in Ottignies-Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.
The visit was arranged by the Ministry of Education. The visitors included Luc Sels, Rector of KUL, Vincent Blondel, Rector of UCL, An Descheemaeker, Director of the International Office of KUL, Dana Samson, Vice President of International Affairs at UCL, and Koen Verlaeckt, Secretary General of the Flemish Interuniversity Council (VLIR), Belgium. In May 2018, the College of Management signed a student exchange agreement with KUL. In November this year, there will be student exchanges from the Department of Business Management and the Department of Human Resource Management to KUL. During this visit, Dean San Yih Hwang of the College of Management, NSYSU also actively proposed the idea of signing a student exchange agreement with UCL to facilitate more diverse student exchange opportunities for the students at College of Management.
Dean Huang pointed out that the College of Management had been actively seeking to expand the school’s international exchange resources. At the moment, the College has 69 sister schools around the world, covering 26 countries. Among them, the College of Management has signed partnership agreements with four sister universities in Belgium, including Ghent University, University of Liege, Universite libre de Bruxelles and the KUL. Among the four schools, KUL ranked 81st in the 2019 QS World University Ranking, 57th in the US. News Best Global Universities, and 16th in Europe area. On top of that, it is the number one university in Belgium. Hence, KUL is a definitely very good choice for students who seek to participate in student exchange programs. In addition to partner schools that offer student exchange programs, the College of Managements has also signed a double degree program with 10 top universities and colleges in the world. Besides offering the opportunity of studying abroad and experiencing other cultures, such a program offers the opportunity of bringing home two degrees and giving participating students the added value to not only future employers, but also themselves.
