The University of Liège (french: Université de Liège), or ULiège, is a major

public university A public university or public college is a university or college that is in state ownership, owned by the state or receives significant government spending, public funds through a national or subnational government, as opposed to a private unive ...

of the

French Community of Belgium In Belgium, the French Community (french: Communauté française; ) refers to one of the three constituent constitutional linguistic communities. Since 2011, the French Community has used the name Wallonia-Brussels Federation (french: Féd� ...

based in Liège,

Wallonia Wallonia (; french: Wallonie ), or ; nl, Wallonië ; wa, Waloneye or officially the Walloon Region (french: link=no, Région wallonne),; nl, link=no, Waals gewest; wa, link=no, Redjon walone is one of the three regions of Belgium—alo ...

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

. Its official language is French. As of 2020, ULiège is ranked in the 301–350 category worldwide according to ''

Times Higher Education ''Times Higher Education'' (''THE''), formerly ''The Times Higher Education Supplement'' (''The Thes''), is a British magazine reporting specifically on news and issues related to higher education. Ownership TPG Capital acquired TSL Education ...

'', 451st by ''

QS World University Rankings ''QS World University Rankings'' is an annual publication of university rankings by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS). The QS system comprises three parts: the global overall ranking, the subject rankings (which name the world's top universities for the ...

'', and between the 201st and 300th place by the '' Academic Ranking of World Universities''. More than 2,000 people, including academics, scientists and technicians, are involved in research of a wide variety of subjects from basic research to applied research.

History

The university was founded in 1817 by

William I of the Netherlands William I (Willem Frederik, Prince of Orange-Nassau; 24 August 1772 – 12 December 1843) was a Prince of Orange, the King of the Netherlands and Grand Duke of Luxembourg. He was the son of the last Stadtholder of the Dutch Republic, who went ...

, then King of the

United Kingdom of the Netherlands The United Kingdom of the Netherlands ( nl, Verenigd Koninkrijk der Nederlanden; french: Royaume uni des Pays-Bas) is the unofficial name given to the Kingdom of the Netherlands as it existed between 1815 and 1839. The United Netherlands was cr ...

, 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 The Prince-Bishopric of Liège or Principality of Liège was an ecclesiastical principality of the Holy Roman Empire that was situated for the most part in present-day Belgium. It was an Imperial Estate, so the bishop of Liège, as its prince, ...

. Beginning in the eleventh century, the influence of the principality attracted students and prominent scientists and philosophers, such as

Petrarch Francesco Petrarca (; 20 July 1304 – 18/19 July 1374), commonly anglicized as Petrarch (), was a scholar and poet of early Renaissance Italy, and one of the earliest humanists. Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credited ...

, 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 Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...

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 The Meuse ( , , , ; wa, Moûze ) or Maas ( , ; li, Maos or ) is a major European river, rising in France and flowing through Belgium and the Netherlands before draining into the North Sea from the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta. It has a t ...

, in the center of ''the Island'', the Latin Quarter of Liège. In 2009, the Agronomical University of Gembloux (FUSAGx), based in

Gembloux Gembloux (; wa, Djiblou; nl, Gembloers, ) is a city and municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Namur, Belgium. On 1 January 2006 the municipality had 21,964 inhabitants. The total area is 95.86 km², yielding a population dens ...

, 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

* 1817: foundation of the University of Liege by

. * 1838: opening of the Liège mining school. * 1881: first female student. * 1882: beginning of the construction of the Trasenster Institutes in Liège: ** 1882: Institute of Astrophysics and the Cointe Observatory; ** 1883: Institute of Pharmacy, the Botanical Institute and the Montefiore Institute of Electrical Engineering; ** 1885: the Auguste Swaen Institute of Anatomy; ** 1888: Institutes of Physiology, of Zoology and of Chemistry. * 1955: foundation of the University of Lubumbashi (called Elisabethville at the time) by the State University of Liège. * 1967: beginning of the transfer process from the city center to the Sart Tilman campus. * 1969: the Cureghem University of Veterinary Medicine in

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

is administratively attached to ULiège. * 1989: the State University of Liège becomes a university of the

. * 1991: The Faculty of Veterinary Medicine is transferred from Brussels to the Sart Tilman campus. * 2004: The ''Fondation universitaire luxembourgeoise'' integrates the University of Liège, creating the Faculty of Science's Department of Environmental Science and Management. * 2005: HEC Liège (Management School) and the Department of Economics and Business Administration of the University of Liège merge to create the HEC Liège - School of Management of the University of Liège business school ; * 2009: The University of Agricultural Sciences of Gembloux (FUSAGx) in

is integrated into the University of Liège, becoming an independent faculty under the name Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech. * 2010: Through the merger of the ''Institut supérieur d'architecture Saint-Luc de Liège'' (ISA Saint-Luc Liège) and the ''Institut supérieur d'architecture Lambert Lombard'' (ISAI LL), a new faculty is created within ULiège: the Faculty of Architecture. * 2015: the Institute of Human and Social Sciences (ISHS) becomes an independent faculty: the Faculty of Social Sciences (FaSS) *2021: The Department of Media, Culture and Communication of the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters establishes its school of journalism, with various auditoriums, classrooms and studios in the renovated Grand Poste de Liège; named Media Campus, these facilities are located in front of the historical faculty buildings. The student radio station 48FM is also relocating there.

Organisation

The rector of ULiège is Professor

Pierre Wolper Pierre Wolper is a Belgian computer scientist at the University of Liège. His research interests include verification methods for reactive and concurrent programs, as well as temporal databases. He is the co-recipient of the 2000 Gödel Prize, al ...

, who succeeded Professor Albert Corhay in 2014. Anne Girin has been the university's Administrator since September 1, 2020. She replaced Laurent Despy and became the first woman to hold this position. The University of Liège counts: * 24,522 students ** 4,600 foreign students * 4,300 employees ** 2,800 faculty members (both teaching and research) ** 1,300 administrative and technical support staff ULiège comprises 11 faculties: *Faculty of Philosophy and Letters * Faculty of Law, Political Science and Criminology **The Jean Constant Graduate School of Criminology *Faculty of Social Science * Faculty of Science *Faculty of Applied Science * Faculty of Medicine * Faculty of Veterinary Medicine * Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech – Faculty of Agronomical Science and Bioengineering * Faculty of Psychology, Logopedics and Educational Sciences * Faculty of Architecture * HEC Liège Management School

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

Namur Province Namur (; nl, Namen ; wa, Nameur) is a province of Wallonia, one of the three regions of Belgium. It borders (clockwise from the West) on the Walloon provinces of Hainaut, Walloon Brabant, Liège and Luxembourg in Belgium, and the French de ...

, and Faculty of Science Department of Environmental Science and Management is located in

Arlon Arlon (; lb, Arel ; nl, Aarlen ; german: Arel ; wa, Årlon; la, Orolaunum) is a city and municipality of Wallonia located in and capital of the province of Luxembourg in the Ardennes, Belgium. With a population of just over 28,000, it is th ...

, 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 France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

, a meteorological station and the

Sphinx Observatory The Sphinx Observatory is an astronomical observatory located above the Jungfraujoch in Switzerland. It is named after the ''Sphinx'', a rocky summit on which it is located. At above mean sea level, it is one of the highest observatories in th ...

on the Jungfraujoch, Switzerland, since 1950 and research stations and observatories in

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

( SPECULOOS and TRAPPIST-South),

Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria t ...

and Tenerife,

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

( TRAPPIST-North).

Notable alumni

''For full list, see

University of Liège alumni A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, th ...

.'' * Joaquín Arderíus, novelist * Philippe Bodson, engineer *

Albert Claude Albert Claude (; 24 August 1899 – 22 May 1983) was a Belgian-American cell biologist and medical doctor who shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1974 with Christian de Duve and George Emil Palade. His elementary education s ...

Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded yearly by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute for outstanding discoveries in physiology or medicine. The Nobel Prize is not a single prize, but five separate prizes that, according ...

in 1974 * Marie Delcourt, first female professor at the ULiège * Marcel Detienne, philosophy and literature (PhD) * Paul Demaret, rector of the

College of Europe The College of Europe (french: Collège d'Europe) is a post-graduate institute of European studies with its main campus in Bruges, Belgium and a second campus in Warsaw, Poland. The College of Europe in Bruges was founded in 1949 by leading ...

* Jacques H. Drèze, economist * Paul Fredericq (1850–1920), historian * Michel A. J. Georges, veterinary, 2008 Francqui Prize *

Jean Gol Jean Gol (8 February 1942 – 18 September 1995) was a Belgium, Belgian politician for the Liberalism, liberal Walloon Region, Walloon party Parti Réformateur Libéral (PRL). He was a minister, on several occasions, in the Belgian government, in ...

(1942–1995), lawyer, politician * Alexis Jacquemin (1938–2004), economy, 1983 Francqui Prize on Human Sciences *

David Keilin David Keilin FRS (21 March 1887 – 27 February 1963) was a Jewish scientist focusing mainly on entomology. Background and education He was born in Moscow in 1887 and his family returned to Warsaw early in his youth. He did not attend scho ...

, entomologist * Auguste Kerckhoffs, Dutch linguist and cryptographer * Jean-Marie Klinkenberg, linguist and semiotician * Jan Kowalewski, Polish

cryptologist This is a list of cryptographers. Cryptography is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of third parties called adversaries. Pre twentieth century * Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi: wrote a (now lost) bo ...

Wincenty Kowalski Wincenty Kowalski (1892–1984) was a Polish military commander and a general of the Polish Army. A veteran of both World War I and World War II, he fought in all the inter-war conflicts of Poland. During the Invasion of Poland of 1939 he commanded ...

, Polish military commander * Marc Lacroix (1963- ), biochemist *

Joseph Lebeau Jean Louis Joseph Lebeau (3 January 1794 – 19 March 1865) was a Belgian liberal statesman, the prime minister of Belgium on two occasions. Biography Born in Huy, he received his early education from an uncle who was parish priest in Hannut, a ...

, statesman * Jean-Christophe Marine, biologist * Marcel Nicolet, Belgian physicist and meteorologist * Jean-Baptiste Nothomb, statesman and diplomat * Stanisław Olszewski, Polish

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the limit ...

and inventor * Paul Pastur, lawyer and politician (1866–1938) * Joseph Plateau (1801–1883), physicist * Georges Poulet, literary critic * Guy Quaden, economist, Governor of the National Bank of Belgium * Jean Rey (1902–1983), second President of the European Commission * Max Rooses, writer *

Léon Rosenfeld Léon Rosenfeld (; 14 August 1904 in Charleroi – 23 March 1974) was a Belgian physicist and Marxist. Rosenfeld was born into a secular Jewish family. He was a polyglot who knew eight or nine languages and was fluent in at least five of the ...

, physicist * Philippe-Charles Schmerling, pioneer in

paleontology Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...

Theodor Schwann Theodor Schwann (; 7 December 181011 January 1882) was a German physician and physiologist. His most significant contribution to biology is considered to be the extension of cell theory to animals. Other contributions include the discovery of ...

, developer of

cell theory In biology, cell theory is a scientific theory first formulated in the mid-nineteenth century, that living organisms are made up of cells, that they are the basic structural/organizational unit of all organisms, and that all cells come from pre ...

and discoverer of

Schwann cells Schwann cells or neurolemmocytes (named after German physiologist Theodor Schwann) are the principal glia of the peripheral nervous system (PNS). Glial cells function to support neurons and in the PNS, also include satellite cells, olfactory en ...

* Polidor Swings, 1948 laureate of the Francqui Prize * Haroun Tazieff, French vulcanologist and

geologist A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid, liquid, and gaseous matter that constitutes Earth and other terrestrial planets, as well as the processes that shape them. Geologists usually study geology, earth science, or geophysics, althoug ...

* André Henri Constant van Hasselt, poet

Notable faculty

* Zénon-M. Bacq (1903–1983), radiobiologist * Florent-Joseph Bureau (1906–1999), mathematician *

Eugène Charles Catalan Eugène Charles Catalan (30 May 1814 – 14 February 1894) was a French and Belgian mathematician who worked on continued fractions, descriptive geometry, number theory and combinatorics. His notable contributions included discovering a periodic ...

, mathematician * André Danthine, computer scientist *

Marcel Florkin Marcel Florkin (Liège, 15 August 1900 – 3 May 1979) was a Belgian biochemist. Florkin was graduated as a Doctor in Medicine and became a professor of biochemistry at the University of Liège. In 1951, he was the initiator of the Belgian Societ ...

(1900–1979), medicine, biochemistry * Laurent-Guillaume de Koninck (1809–1887), palaeontologist and chemist * Émile Louis Victor de Laveleye, economist * Marie Delcourt (1891–1979), classical philologist * Philippe Devaux (1902–1979), philosopher * Paul Fourmarier (1877–1970), geologist * Paul Gochet (1932), philosopher * Groupe µ, Group of semioticians *

Godefroid Kurth Godefroid Kurth (1847–1916) was a celebrated Belgian historian and pioneering Christian democrat. He is known for his histories of the city of Liège in the Middle Ages and of Belgium, his Catholic account of the formation of modern Europe in ' ...

(1847–1916), historian *

Paul Ledoux Paul Ledoux (8 August 1914 – 6 October 1988) was a Belgian astrophysicist best known for his work on stellar stability and variability. With Theodore Walraven, he co-authored a seminal work on stellar oscillations. In 1964 Ledoux was awar ...

(1914–1988), astrophysicist * Jean-Pierre Nuel (1847–1920), physiologist * Pol Swings (1906–1983), astrophysicist * Edouard Van Beneden (1846–1910), biologist *

(1810–1882), biologist

Honorary doctorate

Salman Rushdie Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie (; born 19 June 1947) is an Indian-born British-American novelist. His work often combines magic realism with historical fiction and primarily deals with connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and We ...

(September 1999) *

Dominique Strauss-Kahn Dominique Gaston André Strauss-Kahn (; born 25 April 1949), also known as DSK, is a French economist and politician who served as the tenth managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and was a member of the French Socialist P ...

(May 2011) * Mikhail Gorbachev (2011) *

Bill Viola Bill Viola ( , ; born 1951) is an American contemporary video artist whose artistic expression depends upon electronic, sound, and image technology in new media. His works focus on the ideas behind fundamental human experiences such as birth, d ...

(2010)

Notes and references

External links

*
ULiège's WebTV

International Conference on System Simulation in Buildings held in ULiège
{{DEFAULTSORT:University Of Liege Public universities Educational institutions established in 1817 Buildings and structures in Liège Engineering universities and colleges in Belgium 1817 establishments in Europe 1817 establishments in the Netherlands William I of the Netherlands Universities and colleges formed by merger in Belgium