1. Broad public support and multiperspectivsm: the Master of Science in Occupational Therapy is an interuniversity Master’s programme (organised by Ghent University, KU Leuven, Hasselt University and the University of Antwerp), and is the result of intense collaboration with all the university colleges offering a professional Bachelor’s programme in Occupational Therapy. The two-year programme consists of an academic bridging programme and an actual Master’s programme, taught at KU Leuven and Hasselt University, respectively. The programme has been developed from a multiperspectivistic outlook, which is why it has garnered broad public support.
2. Academic training, management and innovation: based on three core professional roles in occupational therapy, the programme’s leitmotivs are research, management and innovation. All three components are equally important: in addition to research, we focus on management competencies (people management, change management, health care management, …), and innovative thought and action. Both the academic bridging programme and the Master’s programme train students to fulfil these three professional roles at a high level.
3. Occupational Science, i.e. research into human action, is at the core of our programme.  Evidence increasingly shows that meaningful activities have a positive influence on individuals’ participation in, and quality of, life. This unique perspective takes centre stage in our programme.
4. Advanced practice in occupational therapy: In the face of society’s fast-changing views on illness and health, the occupational therapist faces equally fast-changing professional roles. Our programme equips students with the necessary knowledge and skills to face these professional challenges. Through advanced practice in occupational therapy, which is evidence-based and founded on recent insights, students learn how to perform clinical interventions at an expert level. They learn how to coach in an interdisciplinary manner, to take on professional leadership, and to contribute to ethical decisions in specific cases.

1. Stakeholder involvement: the professional field, research and education. We place great store by the involvement of our different stakeholders in the professional field, in research, and in education. Quality monitoring means taking into account the interests of all our stakeholders’ interests. The quality improvement plan is an excellent starting point for going over the curriculum and discuss potential improvements with alumni, and with specialists from different intervention domains. These consultations allow us to keep abreast with innovations, and to strengthen our obvious ties with the professional field further.
2. Our lecturers are strongly involved both in academic research projects, and in clinical practice. This combination of topical research results and clinical experience leads to a curriculum that is clearly research-based and evidence-based. 
3. In the face of society’s fast-changing views on illness and health, the needs and requirements of future occupational therapists follow suit. Our study programme anticipates these needs, on the one hand, by stimulating our students to think and reason critically, and by introducing course units like “Tech-Supported Innovation in the Rehabilitation, Health and Welfare Sectors”, on the other. This way, we meet changing social contexts and patient populations.
4. Student involvement in our study programme is strong. Our students are represented in various councils and committees like the Study Programme Committee, the Steering Group Committee and the Quality Assurance Cell. Since our student group is rather small, we supply (quantitative) results of course feedback by students with structural student consultations.
5. Quality assurance and a focus on assessment: under supervision of the Quality Assurance Cell, our programme has established a sound quality assurance policy. Our curriculum, education organisation, and the quality of our lecturers are systematically held up against the light by external experts, lecturers, and students. We also pay particular attention to high-quality assessment: with a regular benchmark of our Master’s dissertations with international institutions, among other things, we aim for a high exit level.

1. Internationalisation: the Occupational Therapy programme is an academic continuation of a professional Bachelor’s programme consisting of only one actual Master’s year. Internationalisation, particularly in the form of international exchange programmes, is a challenge. We keep looking for alternative international experiences, e.g. by inviting international lecturers and organising short stays abroad like academic conferences and international research projects. To this end, a new course unit on internationalisation has been introduced into the curriculum.
2. Distance teaching and blended learning are indispensable components of any interuniversity programme. As it is, we ask of both our students and our lecturers quite a bit of commuting between different campuses at different universities. We are investing in opportunities to expand distance teaching, and to integrate blended learning techniques better into the curriculum. That way we want to try and reduce student commutes to a minimum. The new Master’s curriculum at Hasselt University is set up with a clear focus on distance teaching and blended learning.
3. Differentiation: the new Master’s curriculum at Hasselt University works towards thorough differentiation in the programme, and an optimal student intake, study progress and student outflow. We fed our curriculum with typical occupational therapy course units as well as course units from related disciplines taught by doctors, educationalists, psychologists and physiotherapists with a doctorate. As undeniably broadening as this is, it is equally important to have sufficient occupational therapists holding a doctorate to strengthen the programme’s research finality from within the discipline.

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 01/02/2023.
In case of questions or suggestions with regard to the publicly available information, please contact the study programme.