At Ghent University, we strive to educate people who dare to think about the challenges of tomorrow. For that purpose, we provide education that is embedded in six strategic objectives: Think Broadly, Keep Researching, Cultivate Talent, Contribute, Extend Horizons, Opt for Quality.
Ghent University continuously focuses on quality assurance and quality culture. The Ghent University's quality assurance system offers information on each study programme’s unique selling points, and on its strengths and weaknesses with regard to quality assurance.

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Ghent University's Education Objectives

Quality Assurance at Ghent University

1. Our lecturers are especially committed vis-à- vis students, they put into practice what they teach, and as experts, e.g. in their position as president of the European Environment Agency (EEA) Scientific Committee, Head of Cabinet, ..., they can also weigh on policy.
2. Our study programme focuses on government policy and governance at different levels (such as local/regional/federal/EU administrations and non-profit sectors), and in all its forms.
3. Multidisciplinarity is part of our programme’s DNA. The curriculum combines the core disciplines of law, management, public administration and policy analysis, economics and finance with relevant knowledge from other disciplines (e.g. languages, informatics and research methods).
4. Our curriculum contains a solid academic basis. Our core team provides thoroughly research-based education as well as an explicit methodological learning pathway. As a result, our students gradually develop their research skills, which eventually culminates in the Master’s dissertation.
5. We explicitly combine our strong academic groundwork with practical experience and insights. This strong knowledge base also serves towards the development of practical skills.
6. We are fully committed to the principle of active teaching, by means of which we want to make students understand and question the subject matter at hand critically. In other words, we want to do more than provide ex cathedra teaching. We achieve this by means of applications, specific cases, strong interaction via Q&A, exercises, presentations, etc.
7. We offer unique opportunities for internationalisation: a study visit to the European institutions, participation in the international NASPAA-Batten Student Simulation Competition, ... . presentations, etc.

1. Our programme is fully NVAO-accredited and recognized by international accreditation agencies. This is evident in our achieving the ICAPA and EIAPA accreditations for the Bachelor’s and the Master’s programme.
2. Our programme is well-attuned to the labour market: 90% of our graduates indicate that they find employment within two months of graduation. It goes without saying that our graduates naturally end up in public and semi-public organisations at all levels of government, but also in the broader social and non-profit sectors, and sometimes even in the private sector (e.g. in temporary employment or at consultancy companies).
3. Our programme is valued by both students and graduates in terms of content as well as in terms of the overall education process, as is apparent from quantitative and qualitative surveys year after year.
4. Our programme interacts strongly with the professional field, which ensures that the most topical issues and insights from practice find their way into the curriculum, and vice versa. Knowledge and expertise is transferred from our programme to the professional field. After all, our lecturers are in high demand by the field (e.g. in the context of lectures, supervision and consultancy assignments, juries). We, in turn, also integrate various practical cases, guest speakers, site visits, etc. into study programme.
5. A specific strength of ours is the mandatory work placement which is programmed in the third year, and during which students carry out a practical assignment within an organization. Work placement supervisors appreciate the maturity and qualities of our students. This is reflected in the many returning offers for work place assignments we receive year after year. Students, in turn, indicate that the work placement is a unique experience for them, and a great help in orienting themselves on the future job market.

1. Although a number of internationalisation opportunities are already in place (e.g. Erasmus exchanges, international lecturers, English-taught course units), we want to strengthen this dimension of our programme further (e.g. by looking for more exchange partners). In doing so, we keep monitoring a proper balance between the local context and international components, the composition of the student population and the international community, exchange and training.
2. Our programme is an interactive one. However, the workload associated with active teaching methods in relation to the student numbers remains a point of attention. From an international perspective, and even though investments have been made in recent years, we only have limited staffing in the light of our student numbers. We absolutely want to maintain the close and personal interaction between lecturers, students and the professional field.
3. We have been interacting with alumni for years, but in a rather ad hoc manner. Stronger, structurally embedded alumni activities are on the agenda: we want to achieve stronger alumni involvement in our programme, and conversely, we also want to propose members from our programme to the lifelong learning network.

This study programme is accredited by the Accreditation Organisation of the Netherlands and Flanders (Dutch: NVAO). Accreditation was extended following the positive outcome of the institutional review in 2022. Programme quality was validated by a quality review, i.e. a screening of the Education Monitor by the Education Quality Board. The Quality Assurance Resolution (in Dutch) can be found here.