University of Liège


The University of Liège, or ULiège, is a major public university of the French Community of Belgium based in Liège, Wallonia, Belgium. Its official language is French. As of 2020, ULiège is ranked in the 301–350 category worldwide according to Times Higher Education, 451st by QS World University Rankings, and between the 201th and 300th place by the Academic Ranking of World Universities.
More than 2000 people, academics, scientists and technicians, are involved in research of a wide variety of subjects from basic research to applied research.

History

The University was founded in 1817 by William I of the Netherlands, then King of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, and by his Minister of Education, Anton Reinhard Falck. The foundation of the university was the result of a long intellectual tradition which dates back to the origins of the Bishopric of Liège. Beginning in the eleventh century, the influence of the prince-bishops of Liège attracted students and prominent scientists and philosophers, such as Petrarch, to study in its libraries. The reputation of its medieval schools gave the city the reputation as a new Athens.
A 17 March 1808 decree by Napoleon I concerning the organization of an imperial university indicated Liège as the site of a new academy to be composed of a Faculty of Arts and a Faculty of Science—the first university charter for Liège. Ultimately, Liège owes its university to William I of the Netherlands, who remembered the city's prestigious legacy of teaching and culture when he decided to establish a new university on Walloon soil.
Nearly 200 years later, settled to some extent in the district of Liège, the University of Liège belongs to the French community of Belgium. The University is located at the edge of the River Meuse, in the center of the Island, the Latin Quarter of Liège. In 2009, the Agronomical University of Gembloux, based in Gembloux, in the Province of Namur, integrated ULiège. It has adopted a new name for academics as well as research, namely Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech.

Chronology

The University of Liège counts:
ULiège comprises 11 faculties:
Since the 1970s, ULiège's main campus has been the hill, a vast planned community campus located about ten kilometers south from the center of Liège. However, the university has kept its headquarters and many administrative facilities in the city centre, as well as the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, the Institutes of Zoology, Anatomy, the HEC Liège Management School and the newly incorporated Faculty of Architecture.
The Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech campus and faculty are located in the city of Gembloux, Namur Province, and Faculty of Science Department of Environmental Science and Management is located in Arlon, Luxembourg Province.
The university also owns a scientific research station in the Belgian High Fens since 1924, the STARESO oceanography station in Calvi, Corsica, France, a meteorological station and the Sphinx Observatory on the Jungfraujoch, Switzerland, since 1950 and research stations and observatories in Chile, Morocco and Tenerife, Spain.

Notable alumni

For full list, see :Category:University of Liège alumni|University of Liège alumni.