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. This is a broad engineering programme in which various aspects that are important in a business context are combined, i.e., scientific, technological, economical, and organisational factors. Graduated IE/OR engineers are excellently prepared to face concrete challenges, to solve problems, and to take the lead in companies and organisations to strive for “operational excellence”.
2. This engineering profile is much wanted in the business world resulting in many job opportunities in very diverse companies and sectors. The programme is also much appreciated by the students themselves.
3. The programme strikes a balance between academic, research-related skills and professional, hands-on skills. Most teachers have close contacts with the business world, through their experience in national and international projects in cooperation with industry and/or based on their affiliation with e.g. Flanders Make or imec. During their classes and assignments, they share both their hands-on experience and their relevant research findings.
4. Students have a certain freedom of choice to compose their study programme according to their interests. They can choose to subscribe to a mix of technical, managerial and social elective course units; they can select the subject of their master’s dissertation; and they can opt to subscribe to an (international) apprenticeship
5. Student association ORLean joins the students in various extracurricular activities, such as company visits, meetings with alumni, talks from industry representatives, etc. and helps the students to establish networks in doing so.

1. In many courses, assignments and group projects are offered in which the theory is applied to practical cases, which provides the students with immediate relevant business experience.
2. The programme adopts active learning practices in which the students are encouraged to take initiative. Various courses offer blended learning, i.e., online learning combined with Q&A, independent project work, and feedback sessions.
3. Students become acquainted with state-of-the-art software tools and packages for various applications, such as data processing, optimisation, statistics, simulation, and automation.
4. In addition to the formal student representation in the Study Programme Committee, the students are also often consulted informally. This decreases the distance between students and staff, facilitating a quick and open discussion of possible problems.
5. The programme’s evolution and organisation is evaluated by the business world by means of the established advisory board, whose members hold key positions in both large cooperations and innovative SMEs across different industries and application domains.

1. We are attending to a better distribution of the project work across the different course units to avoid coinciding deadlines or taking up time allotted to other course units (that have no project work).
2. Many students conduct their Master’s dissertation in a business context and in so doing, they gain their first hands-on experience. In theory, this is a a positive trend. In some cases, however, this is detrimental to the scientific-academic quality of their work. We will monitor this closely by means of e.g. programme feedback. 
3. Since there is no specific preparatory Bachelor of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research (prospective) students are still insufficiently acquainted with our Master’s programme. We intend to draw the attention of (prospective) students and companies to our specific profile and branding by participating in information sessions and graduate fairs. In addition to these measures, we also strive to organize our own Bachelor’s programme in due course.

Tailored coaching programme: As stipulated in the quality improvement plan, the study programme in liaison with the faculty and the Education Department, is set to eliminate the weaknesses within a reasonable time frame. The study programme delivers regular progress reports to the Education Quality Board.  

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.

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.