École polytechnique de Louvain | |
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Other name | EPL |
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Former names | École des Mines et des Arts et Manufactures(1864) Faculté des Sciences appliquées(1961) |
| Type | Public university faculty |
| Established | 1864 (161 years ago) (1864) |
Parent institution | UCLouvain |
| Affiliation | Conférence des Grandes écoles Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities CESAER CLUSTER Coimbra Group IMCC TIME |
| Rector | Vincent Blondel |
| Students | 2100[1] |
| Location | , 50°40′06″N4°37′15″E / 50.668372°N 4.620832°E /50.668372; 4.620832 |
| Colours | Louvain & EPL blue |
| Website | uclouvain.be/epl |
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TheLouvain School of Engineering orÉcole polytechnique de Louvain (EPL) is a faculty of theUniversity of Louvain,Belgium, founded in 1864. Known as the Faculty of Applied Sciences (Faculté des sciences appliquées) prior to 2008, it currently operates on the campuses ofLouvain-la-Neuve andUCLouvain Charleroi.
The Louvain School of Engineering is one of the four components of the Science and Technology Sector (SST) ofUCLouvain.[2] The other three are the Faculty of Science (SC), the Faculty of Bioengineers (AGRO) and, since 2009, theFaculty of Architecture, Architectural Engineering and Urban Planning (LOCI).
The EPL organizes studies incivil engineering andcomputer science. Studies inarchitectural civil engineering are organized jointly with the LOCI Faculty of Architecture, Architectural Engineering and Urban Planning. These are LOCI's only studies organised in Louvain-la-Neuve instead of itsBrussels (Saint-Gilles) andTournai campuses. Together, the Louvain School of Engineering and LOCI hold 40% ofWallonia-Brussels Federation engineering students, making it the country's largestengineering school, by far.[1]
The faculty headquarters are located inLouvain-la-Neuve since 1972. From 2018, the faculty is also establishing on theUCLouvain Charleroi campus, starting with abachelor's degree incomputer science in September 2020.[3]
All courses are organised on theLouvain-la-Neuve campus. Thebachelor's degree incomputer science is also taught inCharleroi. Only a minor amount of courses of themaster's degree incybersecurity are held at Louvain-la-Neuve, it being a joint degree betweenUCLouvain, theRoyal Military Academy, theUniversity of Namur, theUniversité libre de Bruxelles, the Bruxelles-Brabant College (HE2B) and theHaute École libre de Bruxelles - Ilya Prigogine, with courses in Louvain-la-Neuve,Namur andBrussels.[4]
The faculty has also developed specific programs in collaboration with other universities. While students can choose to swap some courses with courses given inLeuven at sister universityKU Leuven's Faculty of Engineering science; other partnerships include MIT[5] andYale University.[6]
Source:[1]
Within the Louvain School of Engineering, ten different so-calledCommissions de programme organise and supervise the teaching curricula: one commission for the bachelor's degrees (BTCI), and one commission for each graduate field of studies. In addition to these commissions which can be considered as graduate school departments, the School of urbanism and territorial planning (URBA) coordinates teaching and research in urban planning.[7]
Four research institutes are attached to the Louvain School of Engineering: the Institute of Information and Communication Technologies, Electronics and Applied Mathematics (ICTEAM), the Institute of Condensed Matter and Nanosciences (IMCN), the Institute of Mechanics, Materials and Civil Engineering (IMMC) and Louvain Institute of Data Analysis and Modeling in economics and statistics (LIDAM).[8]
Post-doctoral research is mainly done through independent research institutes within UCLouvain's Sciences and Technology Sector (SST). In engineering, these notably include the Louvain Institute of Biomolecular Science and Technology, the Institute of Information and Communication Technologies (IBST), Electronics and Applied Mathematics (ICTM), the Institute of Condensed Matter and Nanosciences (IMCN), the Institute of Mechanics, Materials and Civil Engineering (IMMC), the Institut de recherche en mathématique et physique including theCyclotron Research Center andparticle accelerator, the Biological imaging technology platform, the inter-institute Serres-Phytotron technological platform the Institute of Intensive Computing and Mass Storage or the Earth and Life Institute. These further include numerous research centers and individual laboratories primarily inLouvain-la-Neuve, theLouvain-la-Neuve Science Park, inCharleroi (Aéropole Science Park) and othersciences parks of Wallonia.
The Louvain School of Engineering is part of theConférence des Grandes écoles.
Inspired by theÉcole centrale des arts et manufactures inParis, theÉcole des Arts et Manufactures and theÉcole des Mines were founded in 1864 within the Faculty of Science of the (still unitary)Catholic University of Louvain inLouvain (Leuven).[1] The studies lasted four years and allowed recruitment from private companies. Courses were given at the Marie-Thérèse College and thePope's College.[9]
In 1867, the Schools were renamed into the Special Schools of Arts and Manufacturing, Civil Engineering and Mines (Écoles spéciales des Arts et Manufactures, du Génie Civil et des Mines) to which was later addedd'Architecture et d'Électricité,[1] which led to the long lasting name ofÉcoles spéciales.
The Union of Engineers from the Louvain Special Schools (Union des Ingénieurs sortis des Écoles Spéciales de Louvain), now called AILouvain (Alumni Ingénieurs de Louvain) was founded inCharleroi in 1872, as was the Cercle industriel.[10]
Until 1889, the diplomas awarded by theÉcoles spéciales were considered as "scientific" diplomas because only theState Universities, which wereLiège andGhent, were authorised to award "legal" diplomas, which were necessary forcivil service andpublic works engineers. The abolition of the monopoly of state universities enabled theUniversity of Louvain to organise 5-year courses inmining andcivil engineering from 1890 onwards. In addition, a training as engineer-geologist leading to a university degree was created. The Institute for Electromechanics (Institut d'Électromécanique) was inaugurated in 1901, in new buildings in the center of Leuven, the first proper buildings built for the Special Schools.[11] Further institutes were created in theArenberg Castle park in 1925, and theÉcoles spéciales moved into the castle in 1931, inHeverlee.
The first courses inDutch were given in 1914.[9] A 1929 law greatly broadened the offer of "legal" diplomas and 9 new engineering courses were created inLouvain andCourtrai (textile industry). The courses ofphysical engineering andshipbuilding engineering began in 1945 and were the only ones not to be duplicated when the university was split: they were transferred entirely toLouvain-la-Neuve.
Programs inmanagement and labour sciences were created in the 1950s.
The School of Urban and Regional Planning (URBA), whose structure within the faculty has remained intact since then, was founded in 1961.
In the same year, theÉcoles spéciales became the Faculty of Applied Sciences (Faculté des sciences appliquées, FSA), as an entity which for the first time was independent from the Faculty of Science, and theBusiness Engineering andApplied Mathematics Engineering programs were created.[11] Training in management and labour sciences was transferred to theFaculty of Economic and Social Sciences, founded simultaneously.
The Faculty was linguistically separated in 1964 into theDutch-speakingFaculteit ingenieurswetenschappen and thefrancophoneFaculté des sciences appliquées.[9]
At the beginning of the 1960s, the practical split of theCatholic University of Leuven became inevitable and serious consideration was already being given to transferring theFrench-speaking part outsideLouvain. Following theLeuven crisis, the transfer was formally decided at the end of 1968: the Faculties of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmaceutical science was to be located inWoluwe, Brussels (UCLouvain Brussels Woluwe) and the other faculties inLouvain-la-Neuve (between the French-speaking municipalities ofOttignies andWavre); while the (Flemish)KUL would remain in Leuven.
In 1971, the French-speaking programmes of the Faculty of Applied Sciences were offered on theHeverlee campus, on the outskirts of the city of Louvain (Leuven). From 1973, the programs for the last three years ofcivil engineering were given at the newLouvain-la-Neuve site, while thecandidature degrees (undergraduate) were still being taught at Heverlee. In 1975, the entire Faculty of Applied Sciences (FSA) of the UCL was established in Louvain-la-Neuve. The students from the faculty were the first students (and residents) of the city ofLouvain-la-Neuve.
At that time the "city" was only made up of a few academic buildings. The construction site was huge and the city very sparsely populated.
"The 1972-73 academic year began on October 2. For the first time, students met in Louvain-la-Neuve: the engineers.
They inaugurated the Sainte-Barbe auditoriums, walked in boots among the construction sites, walked in all directions through the tiny district of theKots du Biéreau and the embryo of the rue des Wallons. A little lonely, but full of energy and imagination.
An idea emerged: take a pavement from the Place du Vieux-Marché in Leuven (the one bordering the bottom of the Halles) and, in turns, run through the forest and countryside, and transplant it to the only public space existing in Louvain-la-Neuve: Place Sainte-Barbe!
This was done on October 12. The first kilometre was solemn in appearance, with the pavement placed on a processional stretcher. The real start took place at Arenberg Castle (Heverlee), whose park had been home to the Faculty of Applied Sciences for decades.
- UCLouvain Archives,Service des Archives de l'Université catholique de Louvain, rue Montesquieu 27, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve
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Since 1986, students fromLouvain-la-Neuve and the Dutch-speaking faculty of theKatholieke Universiteit te Leuven, based in Louvain, have been allowed to take certain optional courses at the sister university.[9]
In 1990, the Faculty of Applied Sciences co-founded CESAER, theConference of European Schools for Advanced Engineering Education and Research, inLouvain, with six members originally considered the main institutes for the development of engineering sciences in Europe: the two universities of Louvain, theÉcole des Mines in Paris,Imperial College London,RWTH Aachen University andTU Delft.[12]
In 2008, the Faculty of Applied Sciences officially changed its name toÉcole polytechnique de Louvain (EPL).[1] It uses the English translation Louvain School of Engineering in its international and external communication. It also incorporatedUCLouvain's department ofcomputer science.
From 2020, the Louvain School of Engineering will organise abachelor's degree incomputer science atUCLouvain Charleroi.[3] It thus becomes the first faculty in the University's Science and Technology Sector to become so-called "multi-site" and to be established on two different campuses. It is also the sector's first degree offered inCharleroi.
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