The Université Saint-Louis’s Missions and Objectives

Text approved by the Board of Directors, 6 May 2014

Through its three fundamental missions - teaching, research, and service to the community - the Université Saint-Louis pursues the objectives set out below. They are listed according to their level of generality, not according to a hierarchy of value. These objectives are also broken down into subsidiary objectives which clarify the main conditions for their implementation.

Objectives

The Université Saint-Louis strives to:

Pursue the university’s ideals through its fundamental and necessarily interrelated missions.

Meet its educational and civic responsibilities.

Ensure independence and pluralism based on Christian references.

Maintain and develop its academic specialisation in the human and social sciences and pursue its interdisciplinary academic approach.

Develop its own quality research: supporting both individual and team-driven research, as well as basic and applied research.

Ensure the quality of its teaching provision.

Uphold the high-level standards set by the University for undergraduate education, while meeting its specific teaching demands.

While still focusing on undergraduate education, strengthen programmes as well as academic cooperation in postgraduate education.

Promote its national and international visibility and capitalise on the benefits of being located in Brussels.

Subsidiary objectives

Saint-Louis strives to:

Promote the university’s ideals through its fundamental and interdependent missions of academic teaching, research, service to society, and continuing education.

Ensure a broad-based, fundamental, and multidisciplinary education, especially in the undergraduate degree.

Help students to acquire knowledge and develop their applied intellectual skills while systematically introducing them to the relevant theoretical foundations and methodological norms in their chosen field of study.

Develop students’ reflexive capability and critical thinking by drawing on subjects different from those in the main programme of study.

Enable students not only to master useful and useable knowledge but also to show analytical understanding, broadmindedness, autonomy, creativity, and adaptability.

Enable students to apply their skills in today’s social and professional contexts and to understand the ethical as well as political dimensions – and stakes involved – of knowledge.

Integrate research activities within the teaching/learning process and introduce students to this approach at the undergraduate degree level.

Develop research activities and services to society while preserving independence and critical thinking.

Develop the range of lifelong and executive learning programmes in areas where the University possesses specific academic capabilities.

Meet its educational and civic responsibility by:

Meeting its educational responsibility so that all students have the opportunity to improve their skills, to develop genuine free thinking and to find their place in society.

Creating a stimulating environment that helps to develop students’ personalities and ethical values.

Providing students with an environment that prepares them to become responsible citizens capable of contributing to the development of a society that is democratic, supportive, plural, and receptive to new cultures.

Exercising its civic duty as an institution, in particular: in its internal practices, as a key stakeholder in the democratic public sphere and as a partner in cooperation projects for development.

Being attentive to the ethical issues raised by education, research and institutional practices in general.

Developing and ensure the proper functioning of participatory bodies.

Providing working conditions for all personnel that are conducive to the performance of their functions.

Ensure independence and pluralism based on Christian references by:

Affirming its independence of intellectual inquiry and in education while supporting the pluralism of its members and students.

Supporting education and research on the questions of human destiny, religion and religious issues and on the Christian tradition.

Providing those wishing to do so the opportunity to take part in Christian activities at the university.

Welcoming any initiative that advances dialogue among different philosophical and religious traditions.

Maintain and develop its academic specialisation in the human and social sciences and pursue its interdisciplinary academic approach by:

Establishing its leading position at the heart of the development of humanist culture, human and social sciences and interdisciplinary exchanges.

Raising student awareness about the philosophical, epistemological and historical foundations of the subjects they choose as well as introducing them to the interdisciplinary method.

Develop its own quality research: support both individual principle-investigator and team-driven research, as well as basic and applied research by:

Pursuing a policy to develop research centres within the university and set up one or several interdisciplinary networks of excellence with the participation of the university’s different research centres.

Strengthening the presence of its own researchers in national or international networks of excellence.

Assisting its researchers to access public and private funds for supporting basic and applied research.

Providing young scientists with quality doctoral training, including language learning, in order to help them to complete a Ph.D.

Helping young researchers and permanent academic staff to update their scientific expertise on an ongoing basis, notably through offering opportunities for sabbatical leave.

Ensuring the widest possible dissemination of the results of the university’s research, making them accessible not only to the scientific community, but also to the general public.

Ensure the quality of teaching by:

specifying, for each course unit, the objectives, general content, prerequisite knowledge, teaching strategy, as well as assessment methods and criteria.

providing students with a stimulating learning experience that motivates them to play an active part in their education.

offering students a comprehensive methodology tools: teaching them to structure, analyse, and distinguish the trees from the forest, to articulate their thinking, manage their time, work in a team, access information, and self-assess.

using an appropriate teaching strategy that ensures that the majority of students attain a high level of achievement.

establishing a continuous assessment and quality improvement process to ensure the quality of programmes and teaching.

Uphold the high-level standards set by the University for undergraduate education while meeting its specific teaching demands by:

helping students to manage their transition from secondary school to higher education.

providing teaching on the theoretical and methodological approaches needed for the programme of study, and which are essential to the more specialised postgraduate ‘second-cycle’ programmes.

providing teachers with the resources they need to meet the specific demands of undergraduate education.

maintaining and developing learning support and guidance, particularly for undergraduates encountering difficulties.

catering for the cultural diversity of the university’s students.

developing language skills and openness to other cultures through the provision of language courses, multi-lingual programmes, exchange programmes and language courses abroad.

promoting joint studies and lifelong and executive learning.

offering certain undergraduate programmes on a flexible hours basis and tailored to their target public.

While focusing on undergraduate education, strengthen programmes as well as academic cooperation in postgraduate education by:

developing and promoting Master’s degrees in the university’s key areas of scientific expertise;

creating a research environment conducive to pursuit of doctoral theses;

providing undergraduate and postgraduate education, as far as possible, within interuniversity collaborations.

Promoting its national and international visibility and capitalising on the benefits of being located in Brussels by:

promoting taught and research programmes in cooperation with other Belgian or foreign universities.

facilitating student and staff mobility as a source of cross-fertilisation of ideas and practices, thereby adding value to the university’s teaching and research.

increasing the international visibility of the Institute of European Studies.

in its various academic activities, capitalising on being located in the multi-cultural and bilingual city of Brussels, a European capital, as well as capital of Belgium and of its two major communities.

contributing to the influence of French language & culture on the international stage.