Research

Research and innovation are core activities of the KU Leuven Association, along with education and service to the community.  The Association is at the forefront of research in Flanders, with its research activities ranging from ‘fundamental’, speculative research to ‘applied’, industrial research.

The Association has drawn up a long-term plan for research and innovation and adopted a general code of practice for collaborative research. Responsibility for implementation is delegated to an Association-wide research task force, which closely liaises with the institutional research offices. Researchers from member institutions are encouraged to become affiliated researchers and associate professors at the university. In the field of innovation, the Leuven Research and Development Office helps researchers turn innovative ideas into marketable applications.

To further enhance the quality of its research and innovation activities, the KU Leuven Association has adopted a unique model based on the concentration of resources and intensive cooperation between its members. This model reinforces the ‘triangle of knowledge’, i.e. the close interaction between education, research and innovation.

By 2012, the existing academic  Bachelor’s and Master’s programmes offered at university colleges  should be closely linked to scholarly and scientific research. The Association is devoting considerable effort to this process of “academisation”. Once this  has been achieved, the academic Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees offered at the university colleges will be integrated in the KU Leuven structure. To this end, appropriate cooperation structures have been created in the fields of arts, fine arts, engineering and economics.