Ghent University

Ghent University, known in Dutch as Universiteit Gent and abbreviated UGent, is a public research university in the city of Ghent in the East Flanders province of Belgium and the second largest university of the country根特大学（荷兰语：Universiteit Gent，简称 UGent）是位于比利时东佛兰德省根特市的公立研究型大学，也是比利时规模第二大的大学

It was founded in 1817 by the Dutch king William I before the Belgian state existed, became the first Dutch-speaking university of Belgium in 1930, and obtained wide autonomy and its present name in 1991该校由荷兰国王威廉一世于1817年在比利时建国之前创办，1930年成为比利时第一所荷兰语大学，1991年获得更大自主权并改用现名

History

• The university was opened on 9 October 1817 in a city that had been incorporated into the United Kingdom of the Netherlands after the fall of the French Empire, with lectures beginning on 3 November学校于1817年10月9日开学，当时这座城市在法兰西帝国覆灭后被并入荷兰联合王国，讲座课程于11月3日开讲
• It was one of three universities founded the same year by king William I for the southern provinces of his new kingdom, the others being at Liège and at Leuven这是威廉一世同一年为王国王国南部省份创办的三所大学之一，另两所设在列日与鲁汶
• The original four faculties were humanities, law, medicine and science, the language of instruction was Latin, and the first year counted 190 students and sixteen professors, of whom nine were foreigners from the northern Netherlands and Germany最初设有文学院、法学院、医学院与理学院四个学院，教学语言为拉丁语，首年共有190名学生注册与16名教授，其中9名教授来自荷兰北部与德国
• Jean Charles van Rotterdam was the first rector of the university, in office from 1817 to 1818让·夏尔·范·鹿特丹是学校首任校长，任期为1817至1818年
• After the Belgian revolution of 1830 the number of students fell and the faculties of humanities and science were dissolved, while the enrolment had earlier peaked at only 414 students1830年比利时革命之后在校生人数下降，文学院与理学院被撤销，而在此之前人数峰值也仅有414人
• Both dissolved faculties were restored five years later in 1835, and at that point French replaced Latin as the language of instruction被撤销的两个学院在五年后的1835年得以恢复，同一时期教学语言也由拉丁语改为法语
• After the relief of 1876 and 1890 the university received the right to award degrees of its own, which greatly promoted the sciences, the laboratory work and the appointment of research assistants1876年与1890年的高等教育法颁布后，学校获得自行授予学位的权力，这极大促进了科学发展，实验室工作与研究助理的设置也由此起步
• In 1882 Sidonie Verhelst became the first female student of the university, when she enrolled in science and pharmacy after the entry requirements were relaxed1882年，在入学要求放宽之后，西多妮·费尔赫斯特成为该校第一名女生，她进入的是科学与药学领域
• In 1903 the Flemish politician Lodewijk De Raet led a successful campaign to open instruction in Dutch, and the first courses in that language started in 19061903年佛兰芒政治家洛德韦克·德·拉特领导了一场成功的荷兰语教学运动，1906年首批荷兰语课程开课
• During the first world war the university was closed, and in 1916 the German governor general of occupied Belgium founded a Dutch-speaking institution in Ghent called the Vlaamsche Hoogeschool, which was dissolved after the war第一次世界大战期间学校停办，1916年占领比利时的德军总督在根特创办了一所荷兰语高等学校，战后该校被解散
• After the war the university resumed with French as the sole medium of instruction, and only in 1930 did Dutch become the sole official language, with August Vermeylen as the first rector of a Dutch-language university in Belgium战后学校恢复，仍以法语为唯一教学语言，直到1930年荷兰语才成为唯一官方语言，奥古斯特·费尔梅伦出任比利时首任荷兰语大学校长
• During the second world war the German administration tried to orient the university towards Germany by removing faculty members and installing loyal activists第二次世界大战期间，德方管理层试图把大学引向德国方向，方式是撤换教职人员并安插亲德活跃分子
• In the postwar period the university expanded enormously under the government policy of democratising higher education in Flanders, passing 3000 students by 1953 and more than 11500 by 1969战后在政府推进佛兰芒高等教育民主化的政策下，学校规模迅速扩张，1953年在校生超过3000人，1969年超过11500人
• The faculty of applied sciences was created in 1957, the faculties of economics and veterinary medicine in 1968, the faculties of psychology and pedagogy and of bioengineering in 1969, and pharmaceutical sciences completed the list of eleven应用科学学院创办于1957年，经济学院与兽医学院创办于1968年，心理与教育学院及生物科学工程学院创办于1969年，药学院的加入使学院总数达到十一个
• The 1960s brought repeated student demonstrations around the Blandijn site, where the faculty of arts and philosophy is housed, and the most severe of them took place in 19691960年代校内多次发生学生示威，地点集中在设有文哲学院的 Blandijn 街区，其中最激烈的一次发生在1969年
• In 1991 the university changed its name from the State University of Ghent, abbreviated RUG, to Universiteit Gent, after the government of the Flemish community granted it a much larger degree of autonomy1991年，在佛兰芒社群政府大幅扩大自治权之后，学校由国立根特大学（简称 RUG）改名为根特大学（UGent）
• The autonomy granted in 1991 was followed by a succession of rectors, among them Jacques Willems from 1993 to 2001, Paul Van Cauwenberge from 2005 to 2013 and Anne De Paepe from 2013 to 20171991年获得的自治权此后由历任校长延续，其中雅克·威廉斯任1993至2001年、保罗·范考文贝赫任2005至2013年、安妮·德·佩佩任2013至2017年
• The faculty of politics and social sciences was the most recent addition in 1992, and the institution afterwards pursued a research model based on teams and interdisciplinary collaboration rather than individual scholars政治与社会科学学院于1992年成为最新增设的学院，此后学校在科研组织上转向团队协作与跨学科研究
• In 1999 Ghent University and the Catholic University of Leuven joined their two master of business administration programmes into the Vlerick Business School, which adopted its present name in 20061999年根特大学与鲁汶天主教大学合并双方的MBA项目，成立维勒瑞克商学院，该校于2006年启用现名
• The university has been active in the development of the peptide database tools COinS and Unipept, and in 2003 it joined three higher education institutions to form the association Associatie Universiteit Gent学校参与开发了肽段数据库工具 COinS 与 Unipept，2003年又与三所高等教育机构联合成立根特大学协会
• A new rector, the former left-wing politician Petra De Sutter, took office in 2025 after Rik Van de Walle, who had led the university from 2017 to 2025曾任左翼政界人物的佩特拉·德·苏特于2025年出任校长，接替2017年至2025年任职的里克·范·德·瓦勒

Academics

• The university is organised into eleven faculties, covering arts and philosophy, law, sciences, medicine and health sciences, engineering and architecture, economics and business administration, veterinary medicine, psychology and educational sciences, bioscience engineering, pharmaceutical sciences, and politics and social sciences学校设有文哲学院、法学院、理学院、医学与健康科学学院、工程与建筑学院、经济与工商管理学院、兽医学院、心理与教育科学学院、生物科学工程学院、药学院以及政治与社会科学学院共十一个
• These faculties comprise over 130 individual departments in the English sources and 117 in the Chinese sources, spread over different quarters of the city这些学院下设的系在英文资料中记为130余个，中文资料记为117个，分散在城市的不同街区
• Enrolment figures differ between sources, with the English description giving more than fifty thousand students and nine thousand staff, while the Chinese account gives about 41000 students of whom 4150 are international在校生规模两套资料口径不同，英文资料记为五万余人与约9000名教职工，中文资料记为约41000名学生，其中国际学生4150名
• Undergraduate programmes are taught in Dutch, while a large number of master programmes are offered in English, which is the usual entry route for international students本科项目以荷兰语授课，而大量硕士项目以英语授课，这也是国际学生通常的入学路径
• Every one of the eleven faculties runs doctoral programmes, so that the university can supervise research training across the whole spectrum of sciences, humanities, law and social sciences十一个学院各自设有博士点，因此学校可以在科学、人文、法律与社会科学的全谱系范围内开展博士培养
• The fields in which the university holds a national or continental reputation include biotechnology, medicine, fisheries, veterinary medicine, psychology, agriculture and forestry, and law学校在国内与欧洲层面具有声誉的领域包括生物技术、医学、水产学、兽医学、心理学、农业与林业以及法学
• The named research platforms include the Flanders Institute for Biotechnology, the Belgian Co-ordinated Collections of Micro-organisms and the science parks of Zwijnaarde and Greenbridge, and the university also maintains its own hospital具名科研平台包括佛兰芒生物技术研究所、比利时微生物协调收藏中心，以及 Zwijnaarde 与 Greenbridge 两座科学园，学校还自办一所附属医院
• At the Flanders Institute for Biotechnology the university works with other institutions of the region, and at the science parks of Zwijnaarde and Greenbridge it hosts start-up and incubator activity在佛兰芒生物技术研究所，学校与本地区其他机构协同工作，在 Zwijnaarde 与 Greenbridge 科学园则承载创业与孵化活动
• Research in the university is organised in interdisciplinary centres and institutes that report through a common research administration, a structure adopted after the growth of science made purely individual scholarship unworkable学校科研通过跨学科中心与研究所组织，并统一归口研究管理部门，这一结构是在科研规模膨胀、单纯依靠个人学者已难以为继之后形成的
• Among the university's best known academic achievements are the benzene structure elucidated by August Kekule during his Ghent years and the contributions of his student Adolf von Baeyer to organic chemistry学校最知名的学术成就之一是奥古斯特·凯库勒在根特期间阐明的苯分子结构，以及其学生阿道夫·冯·拜耳对有机化学的贡献
• Students at the university have helped create research software such as the peptide search tool COinS and the proteomics platform Unipept, which grew out of its biochemistry groups学校学生的研究成果转化出多项研究软件，其中源自生化课题组的肽段检索工具 COinS 与蛋白质组学平台 Unipept 最为人知
• The university is a member of the Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities, the European University Association, the Conference of European Schools for Advanced Engineering Education and Research and the Enlight network学校是欧洲研究型大学联盟、欧洲大学协会、欧洲高等工程教育与研究院校会议以及 Enlight 学术网络的成员
• It also participates in the Erasmus and Erasmus Mundus programmes and coordinates the international master of science in rural development and the international master of science in soils and global change学校同时参与 Erasmus 与 Erasmus Mundus 计划，并牵头协调乡村发展国际硕士项目与土壤与全球变化国际硕士项目
• Within Belgium the university supports the Flanders Institute for Biotechnology and the national co-ordinated collections of micro-organisms, while the Belgian universities together place it second in the country in most international tables在比利时国内，学校支持佛兰芒生物技术研究所与国家级微生物协调收藏，在多数国际榜单中该校与鲁汶天主教大学并列或位居全国第二
• Four Nobel laureates are attached to the university, two of them in the sciences and two in the humanities, and their awards span a century from 1911 to 1943与该校相关的诺贝尔奖得主共有四位，其中两位属于自然科学、两位属于人文科学，获奖年份跨越1911年至1943年整整一个世纪
• Students are admitted through the national admission examinations, and the growing share of English taught programmes has made the international route an increasingly important channel of entry本校学生经由国家招生考试入学，随着英语授课项目增多，国际学生通道正成为越来越重要的入学途径

Campus

• The main campus is a university town in the city of Ghent rather than a single enclosed estate, with faculties, laboratories and institutes spread over several quarters close to the centre主校区并非围墙内的一整块地产，而是坐落在根特市内的大学城，各学院、实验室与研究所分布在靠近市中心的多个街区
• Beyond the city centre the university operates the campus at Kortrijk, the Ostend science site with the Greenbridge incubator, the Zwijnaarde science park, and a global campus in Songdo in South Korea在市中心之外，学校还设有科特赖克校区、奥斯坦德校区与其中的 Greenbridge 孵化中心、Zwijnaarde 科学园，以及位于韩国松岛的全球校区
• The Kortrijk campus offers undergraduate and master programmes in industrial sciences, while the Songdo global campus offers three bachelor programmes taught in English, in molecular bioengineering, environmental engineering and food engineering科特赖克校区提供工业科学专业的本科与硕士课程，松岛全球校区则以英语提供分子生物工程、环境工程与食品工程三个本科专业
• The university library occupies the Book Tower on the Blandijnberg, a landmark of the city, and its collection approaches three million volumes大学图书馆位于 Blandijn 山坡上的书塔，那是城市的标志性建筑，馆藏接近三百万册
• Among its special holdings the library preserves Papyrus 30, an early manuscript of the Greek New Testament, and it has taken part in the Google Books Library Project图书馆的特殊馆藏包括希腊文新约早期抄本「Papyrus 30」，该馆同时参与了 Google Books 图书数字化项目
• The university is a partner in De Krook, the new public library and media centre in the centre of Ghent, which opened in 2017 and combines the university library services with a public reading hall学校是根特市中心新型公共图书馆与媒体中心 De Krook 的合作方，该中心于2017年开放，把大学图书馆服务与公共阅览空间结合在一起
• Research buildings of the university include the iGent tower that gives its name to the Zwijnaarde science park, where institutes and start-up companies are housed together学校的科研建筑包括 Zwijnaarde 科学园中因之得名的 iGent 大楼，园区内研究机构与初创企业共处一地
• The university hospital is one of the largest hospitals in Belgium and forms the clinical teaching setting of the medical faculty and the dental schools学校附属医院是比利时规模最大的医院之一，构成医学院与牙医学院的临床教学场所
• Locations of the university that carry historical weight include the Blandijn complex on the Blandijnberg, where arts and philosophy are taught and where the severe student demonstrations of 1969 took place学校具有历史分量的地点包括 Blandijn 山坡上的 Blandijn 建筑群，文哲学院在此教学，1969年那次激烈的学生示威也发生在那里

Reputation

• In the QS World University Rankings 2027 the university is placed tied at 150th in the world, with an overall score of 61.5 out of 100在2027年 QS 世界大学排名中，根特大学以并列第150位的名次进入榜单，综合得分61.5分
• The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2027 places it tied at 116th, and the U.S. News Best Global Universities edition of 2026 and 2027 ranks it 107th2027年泰晤士高等教育世界大学排名将其列为并列第116位，2026至2027年版美国新闻与世界报道最佳全球大学排名将其列为第107位
• In the Academic Ranking of World Universities of 2023 it is 84th and the highest ranked university of Belgium, after being 66th in 2020, and it has never left the world top hundred in the whole modern era of the table2023年世界大学学术排名将其列为第84位，居比利时高校之首，2020年时为第66位，在该榜单的现代统计年代中从未跌出全球百强
• In the Times Higher Education table the university stood at 115 in 2024 and 112 in 2025, while in the 2017 edition of the research impact ranking it was 53rd in the world and 55th in the Leiden ranking在泰晤士高等教育榜单中，学校2024年为第115位、2025年为第112位，而在2017版全球大学研究影响力排名中位列世界第53位、莱顿排名第55位
• The OpenAlex database attributes 214893 works to the university with 21324078 citations, a citation density that matches its position as the leading research university of its country in many fieldsOpenAlex 数据库为该校收录214893篇成果、被引21324078次，这一引用密度与学校在多个领域位居本国研究型大学前列的地位相符
• The university counts four Nobel laureates in its history, Maurice Maeterlinck who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911, Erwin Schrodinger who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1933 as a visiting scholar, Corneel Heymans who received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1938, and George de Hevesy who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1943学校历史上拥有四位诺贝尔奖得主，分别是1911年获诺贝尔文学奖的莫里斯·梅特林克、以访问学者身份于1933年获诺贝尔物理学奖的埃尔温·薛定谔、1938年获诺贝尔生理学或医学奖的柯奈尔·海门斯，以及1943年获诺贝尔化学奖的乔治·德·赫维西
• In veterinary medicine the university has been rated the first in the world in the 2020 edition of the Academic Ranking of World Universities, while the same year it was eleventh in the subject table of the QS ranking在兽医学科上，学校在2020年版世界大学学术排名中位列世界第一，同年该校科在 QS 排名中也位居全球第11位
• Inside Belgium the university consistently ranks second behind the Catholic University of Leuven, occupying second place nationally in the QS table of 2024, in the THE table of 2024 and in the U.S. News table of 2023在比利时国内，学校稳定位居鲁汶天主教大学之后的第二，在2024年 QS 榜单、2024年 THE 榜单与2023年美国新闻榜单中均列全国第2位

Student life

• The motto of the university is the Latin phrase Sapere Aude, translated as dare to think, with the Dutch rendering Durf Denken, while the Chinese account of the university records the motto Inter Utrumque, meaning in between both学校校训为拉丁文「Sapere Aude」，可译为「敢于思考」，荷兰语作「Durf Denken」，中文资料另记校训为「Inter Utrumque」，意为「两者之间」
• Student life is urban rather than collegiate, because the university has no system of residential colleges and its faculties are scattered through the city, so ordinary students mix with the life of Ghent in their daily commute学生的校园生活是城市型的而非学院制，学校没有住宿学院体系，各学院分散在城中，普通学生的日常生活直接融入根特的街区
• The most famous moment in that student history came in 1969, when demonstrations around the Blandijn site turned the quarters of arts and philosophy into a centre of the student movement of the late nineteen sixties这段学生史中最著名的一刻发生在1969年，Blandijn 街区一带的示威使文哲学院一带成为1960年代末学生运动的中心
• Exchange and mobility run through the Erasmus and Erasmus Mundus programmes, which involve faculties throughout Europe, and the university maintains exchange programmes on every continent except Antarctica学生交流主要依托 Erasmus 与 Erasmus Mundus 计划，相关项目涉及欧洲各大学院校，学校的交流项目覆盖除南极洲以外的所有大洲
• Students also take part in the research and start-up life of the science parks at Zwijnaarde and Greenbridge, where institutes and young companies share buildings and equipment学生还参与 Zwijnaarde 与 Greenbridge 科学园的科研与创业生活，研究机构与初创企业在那里共享建筑与设备
• The university library and the De Krook media centre give students reading and study space in the centre of the city, and the Blandijnberg complex remains the symbolic centre of the university town大学图书馆与 De Krook 媒体中心为学生提供了位于市中心的阅读与自习空间，Blandijn 山坡的建筑群仍是这座大学城的象征中心
• The named networks to which the university belongs, the Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities, the Santander Network, the Enlight network and the 3i University Network, also organise student exchanges and doctoral schools学校所属的具名网络包括欧洲研究型大学联盟、Santander 网络、Enlight 学术网络与三校联盟，它们同时组织学生交流与博士学院
• About fifty thousand students and nine thousand staff give the university town its daily character, and the day-time population of the city centre is shaped by the faculties, the library on the Blandijnberg and the historic city core约五万名学生与九千名教职工构成了这座大学城的日常样貌，市中心的日间人口格局由各学院、Blandijn 山坡上的图书馆与历史老城共同塑造

Notable people

• The Dutch king William I, who founded the university in 1817 together with the universities at Liège and at Leuven, created the three institutions in one stroke of southern policy荷兰国王威廉一世于1817年一并创办列日、鲁汶与根特三所大学，以同一次南部政策举措建立起这三所机构
• Jean Charles van Rotterdam, the first rector of the university from 1817 to 1818, presided over a body of sixteen professors of whom nine came from outside the southern provinces1817至1818年担任首任校长的让·夏尔·范·鹿特丹，主持的是一个十六人教授群体，其中九人来自南部省份之外
• August Kekule, the German chemist, spent his Ghent years at the university, where he unravelled the structure of benzene and trained a generation of chemists德国化学家奥古斯特·凯库勒在根特任教，其间阐明了苯分子的结构，并培养了一代化学家
• Adolf von Baeyer, a student of August Kekule who later received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1905, made his contributions to organic chemistry in the same school奥古斯特·凯库勒的学生阿道夫·冯·拜耳于1905年获得诺贝尔化学奖，他同样在这所学校完成了对有机化学的贡献
• Corneille Heymans, a physiologist of the university, received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1938 for his discoveries concerning the regulation of breathing, the only such work in respiratory physiology to be so honoured柯奈尔·海门斯是该校生理学家，因呼吸调节方面的发现于1938年获得诺贝尔生理学或医学奖，这是该领域唯一获此荣誉的工作
• George de Hevesy, who taught at the university, received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1943 for his work on the use of radioactive tracers, and he is one of the four Nobel laureates of the institution在该校任教的乔治·德·赫维西因放射性示踪技术的应用研究于1943年获诺贝尔化学奖，他是学校四位诺奖得主之一
• Maurice Maeterlinck, a graduate in law, received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911 and became the first Belgian writer to be so honoured法学专业毕业生莫里斯·梅特林克于1911年获得诺贝尔文学奖，成为首位获此荣誉的比利时作家
• Leo Baekeland, an alumnus, invented Bakelite, the first fully synthetic plastic, and founded a chemical company that grew into an industrial group校友利奥·贝克兰德发明了第一种全合成塑料 Bakelite，并创办了一家日后发展为工业集团的公司
• Victor D'Hondt, a jurist of the university, gave his name to the D'Hondt method of allocating seats in proportional representation, which is used for parliamentary elections in many countries法学家维克多·德·洪特提出按比例代表制分配议席的「德·洪特法」，该方法至今在许多国家的议会选举中使用
• Guy Verhofstadt, a graduate, served as prime minister of Belgium and later as a leading liberal figure in European politics校友居伊·伏思达曾任比利时首相，后来成为欧洲政坛重要的自由派人物
• Jacques Rogge, a physician by training, was president of the International Olympic Committee, and Peter Piot, a medical graduate, served as assistant secretary-general of the United Nations and executive director of the joint United Nations programme on HIV and AIDS受过医学训练的雅克·罗格曾任国际奥委会主席，医学专业毕业的彼得·皮奥特曾任联合国副秘书长与联合国艾滋病规划署执行主任
• Jiang Ping, the Chinese legal scholar and former president of the China University of Political Science and Law, received an honorary doctorate from the university, which is the university's distinction for a Chinese academic中国法学家江平曾任中国政法大学校长，获根特大学授予名誉博士学位，这是该校给予中国学者的荣誉