Short Description

Situated in Belgium, in the heart of Western Europe, KU Leuven has been a centre of learning for nearly six centuries. Today, it is Belgium’s largest university and, founded in 1425, one of the oldest and most renowned universities in Europe.

As a leading European research university and co-founder of the League of European Research Universities (LERU), KU Leuven offers a wide variety of international master’s programmes, all supported by high-quality, innovative, interdisciplinary research.

KU Leuven is also member of Coimbra Group and Venice International University. KU Leuven has a strong record of securing funding from the most competitive research funds and was named Europe’s most innovative university four years in a row by Reuters (2016-2019). Since its founding, KU Leuven has been based in the city that shares its name. Leuven is a pleasant, safe and bustling student town, where centuries-rich history meets cutting-edge science.

The university offers degree programmes at campuses in 11 Belgian cities and hosted over 62.600 students in the academic year 2023-2024. KU Leuven has Erasmus contracts with over 400 European universities and international contracts all over the world. About 20% of the university’s 60,000+ students are international, representing over 140 nationalities (2023). The university also works with a select number of top-level partner institutions worldwide, and stimulates powerful international mobility and intensive research cooperation. Internationalisation is key in the policy of the university’s board (KU Leuven strategic plans 2017-2021 and 2021-2025). By being one of the driving forces in the Una Europa alliance, KU Leuven is supporting the creation of a truly European inter-university environment as part of the European University Initiative. Una Europa is an alliance of eleven leading research universities, where outstanding research is continuously linked to transnational learning and innovative, critical thinking.

Contact Person

Oliver Holz

Oliver Holz is professor at the Faculty of Economics and Business at KU Leuven, Belgium.

He has a master’s degree in Educational Sciences, Psychology and Physical Education and a PhD in comparative education. He is member of the research group ‘Leuven Economics of Education Research (LEER)’. Topics as cross-country comparisons, gender education, diversity and inclusion studies belong to his expertise.

Oliver Holz is participant in and coordinator of different European projects. He is coordinator of the Teacher Education Network (TEN) of the University of Leuven and its preferential partner universities in Europe and Africa. Furthermore, he is president of the conference consortium of IPiE ‘International Perspectives in Education’. He published his work in different journals and books in different languages.