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: our students start their training with a broad scientific basis, which paves the way for various specialized subdisciplines in biology later on the curriculum. In so doing, our students acquire a multidisciplinary outlook on all things biological. In addition, we broadly contextualize the importance and applicability of biology in society (e.g. nature conservation, sustainable development, climate change, bioethics), encouraging our students to becoming critical and socially conscious thinkers. By means of numerous group activities we create a stimulating environment for students to acquire a problem-solving attitude with a focus on interaction and multidisciplinarity.
2. Talent development: our broad Bachelor’s curriculum equips our students with the necessary knowledge and skills for them to discover their own interests and talents. The Master’s curriculum, then, offers majors, minors and elective course units and the Master’s dissertation. It offers students the freedom to compose a curriculum that suits their own interests. Curricular choices are also determined by our students’ professional interests: research, education or entrepreneurship. By means of a specific choice of teaching methods we offer our students the tools to stimulate awareness of their own talents, also within a professional context (e.g. organizing a symposium, writing application letters, opting for a professional work placement, …).
3. Knowledge creation: in our curriculum, we strive for a balance between knowledge development and practical skills acquisition. We apply this balance in as integrated (and interdisciplinary) a manner as possible. Critical, analytical and problem-solving thinking is key in coming to well-founded yet easy-to-understand solutions and syntheses. The Biology curriculum relies on the extensive research expertise from the lecturers involved, whose teaching practice is based on their own specialization and excellence.
4. Programme: in our English-taught Master’s curriculum students choose one of three profiles/majors: Research Biology, the Master of Science in Teaching in Biology, or General Biology (entrepreneurship). Each major is founded on the core expertise of researchers at the Biology department: Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology, Functional Biology and Global Change Ecology. Depending on the chosen profile, the curriculum offers further options and room for studying abroad.
5. Integration of theory and practice: the Master’s curriculum contains a balanced combination of lectures and an extensive set of practical teaching methods (in the lab, the computer lab, in the field, the classroom, etc.). Individual or group assignments stimulate a creative and critical approach to scientific problems, and how to translate them to specific target groups (other students, policy makers, society, etc.). In so doing, our curriculum emphasizes and stimulates the students’ growth in academic integrity, communication skills, technical and analytical skills.

1. Educational vision and objective: our revised curriculum is based on a well-considered and up-to-date education vision (i.e. “delivering “creative and reflective practitioners”, who translate their problem-solving thinking within a realistic (professional) context into adequate action, through a process of constant assessment and adjustment of their learning and thinking process”), which was regarded as ‘excellent’ by the visitation committee. Among other things, this vision translates into a curricular structure and curricular options that steer students towards a more conscious professional profile. At Master’s level, the education vision also reflects the Biology Department’s policy vision, which guarantees education provided by experts from the focus disciplines involved.
2. Broad scientific basis: the Bachelor’s curriculum starts with a broad scientific foundation, based on three learning pathways (i.e. functional biology, biodiversity and evolution, and ecology). In the Master’s curriculum these learning pathways make sure that students can make targeted choices tailored to their individual interests and talents, while at the same time stimulating a broad interdisciplinarity.
3. Integration of theory and practice: Theory in lectures is extensively linked to a wide range of different active teaching methods (either individually or in group), during which integration (of interdisciplinary information and techniques) and critical self-reflection are key.
4. Analytical Skills: Research competencies in biology require extensive analytical competencies in statistics. Throughout the curriculum, students are given the opportunity to develop the necessary statistical and analytical skills, and to apply them in research (also in a professional context).
5. Communication and accessibility: We place great store by an efficient communication structure, both among the teaching staff (in the context of quality assurance) and towards students (course units and active teaching methods aimed at acquiring communicative competencies for reaching a wide range of target audiences). Our low-threshold approach stimulates an active flow of information in both directions.

1. Integration of practical teaching methods: the current curricular structure implies that practical teaching methods are linked to individual course units, while interdisciplinarity and integration would benefit from a more coordinated approach. We will carry out a feasibility study to detach practical teaching methods from individual course units, and to integrate these into an overarching integrative practicum.
2. Feedback: students rightly wish for more interim feedback on assignments completed throughout the year. We encourage our lecturers to communicate their expectations and achievements more clearly and more frequently.
3. External view: graduated biologists end up in a very broad field, ranging from researcher in biodiversity and nature management, to environmental consultant or medical representative. However, the needs of the professional field are evolving very quickly under the influence of new scientific and social developments, such as the increasing use of genome analysis in all branches of biological research, or the urgent need for adequate assessment techniques to map the impact of climate change on ecosystems. Keeping abreast of these changing needs and developments, and adjusting the curriculum accordingly, can only be achieved through close consultation with the broad and dynamic professional field. Since 2016 we are advised by an advisory group counting representatives from 10 major sectors within the (international) professional field. However, it is a challenge to develop a modus operandi that suits our needs as well as theirs.

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.