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. Multiperspectivism: we train our students into becoming critical professionals with the ability to work as a team and with the necessary skills to work creatively and in a problem-solving manner. Throughout the programme our students collaborate to a great extent with students and lecturers from other programmes. This allows them to hone their critical thought and to learn to collaborate in a multidisciplinary context.
2. We are unique in Flanders and offer our students a unique learning environment. This learning environment is a stimulant for students to learn to design in an independent and critical manner. We place specific emphasis on learning by design and materializing. The Industrial Design Centre at Kortrijk Campus offers a suitable design infrastructure, Which is in turn part of the Ghent Design Factory. Together with locations such as The Foundry, De Krook and the P3Lab, our Industrial Design Centre is an ideal habitat for creative, designing and entrepreneurial innovation.
3. Our application-oriented curriculum and strong ties with the industry allow students to work - either independently or in group - on various design assignments in close collaboration with that industry. Our programme is application-oriented. More than 80% of our Master's dissertations come into being in collaboration with an industrial partner. Thanks to our solid alumni outreach and close ties with organization such as the Kortrijk Design Region and VOKA we are clearly embedded in the local industry.
4. Creative and entrepreneurial: we encourage our students to design in an insecure and creative context. In addition to the specific learning pathway on entrepreneurship, there are also clear entrepreneurial accents in the other learning pathways.
5. Integration of theory and practice: our curriculum contains many hours of tutorials and practicals, during which we use our well-equipped lab space and practical classrooms to apply the theoretical knowledge covered in the lectures. Students have at their disposal well-equipped studios and state-of-the-art equipment for their project work and development of prototypes.

1. Preparation and student counselling: we offer summer courses and introduction days so that our students can start the programme well-prepared. We invest in personal, high-quality student support through our mentors and coaches.
2. Motivated lecturers: our programme boasts a group of motivated lecturers from various disciplines who combine their research expertise with a passion for teaching and a continued enthusiasm for the quality of their lectures. Our small-scale campus and specific didactic methods (projects and concomitant coaching) contribute to our lecturers’ approachability and interaction with the students.
3. Enthusiastic and motivated students: students of Industrial Design Engineering Technology are typically highly entrepreneurial. We strengthen that entrepreneurial spirit by means of our practice-oriented and project-based teaching methods, our collaboration with the industry and a passion for industrial design. Our students often participate in (international) challenges and are offered the opportunity to go to international conferences.
4. Interdisciplinary research by means of iterative design: design solutions do not come into existence by means of paperwork or computer work alone. They are realized in various iterative steps. At each iterative step, we build prototypes and test them from various disciplines and perspectives in order to steer the design process (research through design).

5. Stakeholder Involvement: our Programme Committee ensures an open dialogue and debate with all lecturers and student representatives. The Industrial Advisory Board ensures the involvement of the professional field and of alumni. Our annual focus group discussions with students are a means to monitor programme density and sequentiality.

6. Transparent Assessment: in recent years we have invested heavily in more transparent and objective assessment of project-based work. We combine clear agreements at the start of term with the use of rubrics as a guideline for assessment.

1. International exchange: there is room for improvement in terms of student and staff mobility. Spending a term abroad is currently only possible in the third Bachelor. We are working on solutions to make international mobility possible in the confines of a one-year Master's programme.

2. International Programme Review: our programme has ample assets to put itself on the map. The broadening the external perspective on our programme by consulting international study programmes is an undeniable asset in terms of curriculum design as well as international mobility.

3. Organizing distance teaching in a practice-oriented study programme: we want to develop and maintain our good practices on distance teaching of practicals and projects further to make it accessible for e.g. students working their way through college.

This study programme is accredited by the Accreditation Organization 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.

This information was last updated on 14/02/2023.
In case of questions or suggestions with regard to the publicly available information, please contact the study programme.