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The general task of the Assistant Academic Staff (AAP, “Assisterend Academisch” in Dutch) is to assist the members of the Independent Academic Staff (ZAP) in carrying out their duties. The AAP consists of assistants, practical assistants, and doctoral assistants. As an assistant, you have the right to dedicate at least half of your time to scientific research. As a practical assistant, you mainly provide practice-based education, and as a doctoral assistant, you primarily conduct scientific research.
Basic funding is a system in which a portion of the available research funds at universities is automatically allocated to researchers, without the need to submit a specific project proposal. This system is implemented differently across various universities and differs from competitive research funding, which uses a peer-review process to evaluate project proposals. Note that the term “basic funding” should not be confused with operational grants from the universities.
The Special Research Fund (BOF – “Bijzonder Onderzoeksfonds” in Dutch) is funded by the Flemish government. BOF funding is intended to support universities. BOF funding can be used for various types of research, including fundamental research, strategic research, and interdisciplinary research. It can be used to finance postdoctoral researchers, research projects, and doctoral scholarships. At each university, BOF funding is distributed in different ways, for example, based on competitive calls and evaluations or as base funding.
Education statistics for Higher Education in Flanders provide detailed information on various aspects of higher education in the region. These statistics are typically collected and published by institutions such as the Department of Education and Training of the Flemish government. Key components of these statistics include student numbers, student profiles, teaching staff, study programs, and funding. These statistics are often published in annual reports and are available through various platforms such as the website of the Department of Education and Training and the Flemish Ministry of Education and Training. They offer valuable insights for policymakers, researchers, educational institutions, and the general public to analyze and understand trends and developments in higher education.
With the interactive application “Dataloep,” you can easily search for education data in Flanders. By using criteria and filters such as residence, study program, and year of birth, you can find the desired figures for different academic years.
A “docent” (in Dutch) is an assistant professor (or lecturer) that is usually an early-career independent researcher with a doctorate. Assistant professors typically teach, supervise (doctoral) students, and are involved in research and publications. An assistant professor may later be appointed as (in succession) associate professor (senior lecturer), professor, and full professor. As independent academic staff (“zelfstandig academisch personeel“, ZAP), assistant professors are not supervised by more senior professors.
Flanders Make is the strategic research center for the manufacturing industry, with several locations across Flanders from which they promote open innovation through high-quality research. Additionally, Flanders Make collaborates with companies on tailored innovation and offers testing and validation infrastructure for testing and validating products and production. The goal is to contribute to the technological development of the vehicles, machines, and factories of the future.
FRIS stands for Flanders Research Information Space. FRIS is an online research portal where you can find all the information about publicly funded research in Flanders. It provides more details about researchers, their projects, publications, and specific expertise, helping you quickly find the right experts. The five Flemish universities, as well as other Flemish scientific institutions, supply data about their researchers directly to FRIS, ensuring that research data is automatically kept up-to-date.
The Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO) stimulates and supports fundamental scientific research, strategic basic research, clinical scientific research, the acquisition of heavy and medium-heavy research infrastructure, and the management of large computational capacity in Flanders through financial support. With the financial resources primarily provided by the Flemish Government, the FWO funds mandates and research projects, infrastructure, travel grants, and international scientific collaboration.
In the interactive graph (Data playground – FWO), we show the number of funded and unfunded applications for the following types of funding:
In contrast to sex (which is determined by biological characteristics such as chromosomes, hormones, and sex organs), gender is determined by an individual’s personal experience. Thus, someone can identify as male, female, gender-neutral, non-binary, transgender, etc.
In Flanders, higher education consists of eighteen publicly funded institutions: alongside the five universities (KU Leuven, UGent, UAntwerpen, VUB, and UHasselt), there are also thirteen colleges that focus on applied sciences and arts. Additionally, Flanders has four strategic research centers (Imec, VIB, VITO, and Flanders Make) that closely collaborate with the five universities.
This website primarily provides data related to the five universities, which serve as research institutions and offer academic degrees.
Imec is one of the four strategic research centers and conducts research in micro- and nanoelectronics.
The European Union offers various funding programs for research, including Horizon Europe (such as ERC programs), Erasmus+, Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions, Innovative Europe, and Global Challenges.
IWT stood for the Agency for Innovation by Science and Technology (“Agentschap voor Innovatie door Wetenschap en Technologie” in Dutch). It was established to support innovation projects in Flanders and had access to various funding instruments, allowing it to provide financial support each year to companies, research institutions, and innovation actors. Additionally, it was responsible for services to Flemish companies in the areas of technology transfer, partner search, etc.
However, the IWT no longer exists today. The funding channel has been incorporated into the FWO-SB and FWO-SBO (strategic basic research) channels. This channel funds challenging and innovative research that, if successful, can lead to innovative economic or societal applications (in the form of products, services, and processes) in the long term.
The Codex Higher Education contains a general description of what a position within the academic staff (AP, “Academisch Personeel” in Dutch) at a university entails at a minimum. For more information, see this link to Education Flanders.
On this website, we use the following subdivision for staff categories:
In our graphs based on the VLIR personnel statistics, we distinguish between pre-docs, post-docs, professors, administrative and technical staff, and other academic staff as categories. Other academic staff includes all employees who do not belong to the above five categories, as well as the practice assistants (AAP). The (doctor) assistants already belong to the (post-doc) pre-doc group.
In our charts based on the FWO data, we only distinguish between pre-docs, post-docs, professors, and academic staff who can submit such FWO applications.
A post-doc or post-doctoral researcher is a junior researcher who has already obtained a doctorate and conducts independent scientific research at a university or research institute based on a temporary contract.
In Belgium, this is not a protected title but refers to both temporary and permanent academic staff with a leading role in teaching or research. In the Netherlands, however, it is a title reserved only for a professor (hoogleraar). For more information about the differences between various academic titles, see Docent (assistant professor), Hoofddocent(associate professor), Hoogleraar (professor), and Gewoon Hoogleraar (full professor).
Strategic Research Centers (SOC’s, “Strategische onderzoekscentra” in Dutch) have emerged thanks to the excellent and relevant results of academic scientific research in the broad scientific fields of micro- and nanoelectronics, biotechnology, and broadband technology.
The Flemish Institute for Biotechnology (VIB, “Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie” in Dutch) is an entrepreneurial non-profit research institute, with a clear focus on groundbreaking strategic basic research in the life sciences, operating in close collaboration with the five universities in Flanders.
VLIR stands for the Flemish Interuniversity Council (“Vlaamse Interuniversitaire Raad” in Dutch), which was established in 1976 as a public utility institution. It is an autonomous consultative body funded by the Flemish universities. The goal of VLIR is to promote dialogue and cooperation between the Flemish universities.
VLAIO (Flemish Agency for Innovation & Entrepreneurship, “Vlaams Agentschap Innoveren & Ondernemen” in Dutch) is the primary point of contact for the Flemish government for all entrepreneurs in Flanders. VLAIO stimulates and supports innovation and entrepreneurship and contributes to a favorable business climate.
VLAIO funds research and development with economic added value and offers various grants, loans, and other financing options for researchers.
In Flanders, higher education consists of eighteen publicly funded institutions: in addition to the five universities (KU Leuven, UGent, UAntwerpen, VUB, and UHasselt), there are also thirteen colleges that focus on applied sciences and arts. Furthermore, Flanders has four strategic research centers (Imec, VIB, VITO, and Flanders Make) that work closely with the five universities.
This website primarily provides data related to the five universities, which serve as research institutions and offer academic degrees.
VODS stands for Flemish Research Discipline Standard (“Vlaamse Onderzoeksdiscipline Standaard” in Dutch). The VODS originated from the integration of three pre-existing classification lists for research disciplines, namely those of FWO, FRIS, and VLIR. The VODS is based on the European Fields of Research and Development (FORD) list of the OECD and was further expanded by ECOOM-Hasselt with additions from international classification lists. The VODS consists of four hierarchical levels with an increasing degree of granularity. This results in a list of 7, 42, 382, and 2493 disciplines, respectively (as of 2023). In addition to this list, the VODS also provides three interdisciplinary topics. Currently, the VODS is used by FWO, FRIS, and VLIR. For more information, we refer to the ECOOM website.
FTE stands for Full-Time Equivalent and is used as a measure to indicate the extent of a job or the total occupancy of an organization. It is a way to compare the size of a job or a number of jobs with the number of hours in a full-time position.
A full-time equivalent (FTE) corresponds to the number of hours worked in a full-time job in the same sector or industry. For example, if an organization employs 10 people, each working 0.5 FTE, the total occupancy of the organization is 5 FTE (10 people x 0.5 FTE per person).
Converting part-time positions to a FTE thus provides a good view of the total (academic) staffing of a university.
However, it should be noted that job fragmentation often contains a lot of information about how career policy is handled and that such fragmentation often leads to precariousness or other undesirable social consequences. Calculating with FTE therefore also hides an important part of the information.
In the interactive charts based on the VLIR personnel statistics, one can choose to display “FTE” or “Headcount,” which allows showing the difference between the number of researchers (Headcount) and the full-time equivalent (FTE).
The independent academic staff (ZAP) consists of the four different grades: Docent (assistant professor), Hoofddocent(associate professor), Hoogleraar (professor), and Gewoon Hoogleraar (full professor).
For the interactive graphs of VLIR, you can modify more parameters than what is explained in “How to use an interactive graph?”. The two main selections are:
1. “Group by” where you can choose from various options, such as funding, gender, nationality, or personnel category.
2. “Click for details about” where you can get more information about the selection you made with “group by”. For example, if you selected “university” with “group by”, you can add information about, for example, “funding” (it is possible to make the same selection as with “group by”, but that is not interesting). With “detailed view as”, you can get those details by splitting the lines or displaying them as a relative distribution. The details are obtained by clicking on the lines.
Additionally, for each type of information (funding, gender, personnel category, university), you can determine which specific elements you want to display. For example, for “discipline” you can keep all disciplines or make a selection. In the image above, we selected humanities.
The interactive graphs of FWO are comparable to those of VLIR (link). The main difference is that they show the number of applications (or the corresponding amount) per time period of research personnel at the various Flemish universities over time. You can modify more parameters than what is explained in “How to use an interactive graph?”. Similar to “VLIR – How to use an interactive graph?“, the main categories are:
1. “Group by” where you can choose from various options, such as funding, gender, nationality, or personnel category.
2. “Click for details about” where you can get more information about the selection you made with “group by”. For example, if you selected “university” with “group by”, you can add information about, for example, “funding” (it is possible to make the same selection as with “group by”, but that is not interesting). With “detailed view as”, you can get those details by splitting the lines or displaying them as a relative distribution. The details are obtained by clicking on the lines.
Additionally, for each type of information (discipline, funding, gender, nationality, personnel category, university), you can determine which specific elements you want to show. For example, for “discipline”, you can retain all disciplines or make a selection. In the image above, we have selected humanities.
Right-clicking on a white region within the graph gives you the option to export the displayed data as a json file, or export the figure as a png or svg file.
While sex is determined by biological characteristics (such as chromosomes, hormones, and sex organs), gender is defined by an individual’s personal experience. Thus, someone may identify as male, female, gender-neutral, non-binary, transgender, etc. In other words, the definition of gender is more nuanced and diversified. As the Young Academy, we acknowledge the existence of more than two genders and the importance of making them visible, even in statistics. Currently, we are unable to implement this in this tool due to limitations in our source data. The current charts only display Male (M) and Female (F), as other options (X) were not recorded in the source data for a long time.
Our charts are based on the figures and categories provided to us. The source data from the VLIR personnel statistics only contains information for two genders, male and female. Similarly, the data provided by FWO mostly includes information for two genders, male and female. However, in more recent years, FWO has presented multiple genders in the figures, but the numbers in these categories are so small that we often do not display them in the charts. We only show data if it exceeds a sufficiently large number of persons (or FTE), to protect privacy.
Although we work within the limitations of the original data, we recognize this constraint and refer you to our m/f/x campaign for more information about gender in the Flemish academic landscape.
In the Flemish academic landscape, there are various funding channels available for research.
The titles Docent (assistant professor – lecturer), Hoofddocent (associate professor – senior lecturer), Hoogleraar (professor), and Gewoon Hoogleraar (full professor) are used in the academic world to denote different ranks of academic positions. The distinction between these positions primarily lies in their level of experience, expertise, and responsibilities.
An assistant professor or lecturer is usually an early-career academic staff member with a doctorate. Lecturers typically teach, supervise (PhD) students, and are involved in research and publications. A lecturer can later be promoted to (successively) senior lecturer, professor, and full professor. As independent academic staff (ZAP), lecturers are not supervised by senior lecturers or (full) professors.
A senior lecturer often has more experience and responsibilities than a lecturer. Senior lecturers, for example, may more frequently lead a research group or participate in international collaborations.
A professor has even more seniority and is often regarded as a leading authority in the relevant field. They usually have an extensive track record in research and publications. Professors are responsible for the development of research in their assigned scientific area and for the content of the teaching in that area.
A full professor is a title used in Flanders to refer to the highest of four ranks of independent academic staff (ZAP).
In the Netherlands, this terminology is used differently, see ‘Professor’ in the glossary.
Research disciplines encompass the grouping of research based on professional group, field of study, or specialization. Until recently, there were three different classification lists for research disciplines in use in Flanders: the FWO, FRIS, and VLIR disciplines. At the request of the Flemish government, the Flemish Research Discipline Standard (VODS) was developed, a classification list for research disciplines. Consequently, the research disciplines are categorized differently in the VLIR and FWO data.
VLIR: In the data on VLIR personnel statistics, we use the VODS codes: 1) Humanities, 2) Engineering Sciences, 3) Agricultural Sciences, Veterinary Medicine, and Food Sciences, 4) Medical Sciences, 5) Natural Sciences, and 6) Social Sciences. Note that in the interactive graphs, we abbreviate the category “Agricultural Sciences, Veterinary Medicine, and Food Sciences” as “Agricultural Sciences.” Currently, however, we do not have permission to display this information in the current graphs. We hope that it can be added later.
FWO: For the data provided by FWO-Vlaanderen, the disciplines are specified according to the FWO panels: Humanities, Science and Technology, Biological Sciences, Interdisciplinary Sciences, Medical Sciences, and Social Sciences.
We primarily focus on universities, where research is conducted and academic degrees are offered.
The information on the website is of a general nature. It is not tailored to personal or specific circumstances and therefore cannot be considered as personal, professional, or legal advice to the user.
The Young Academy (JA) makes great efforts to ensure that the information provided is complete, accurate, precise, and up-to-date. Despite these efforts, inaccuracies may occur in the information made available. If the information provided contains inaccuracies or if certain information is not available on or through the site, JA will make the greatest possible effort to rectify this as quickly as possible.
However, JA cannot be held liable for any direct or indirect damage that arises from the use of the information on this site. If you identify inaccuracies in the information available on the site, you can contact the site administrator.
The content of the site (including links) can be modified, changed, or supplemented at any time without notice or notification. JA does not guarantee the proper functioning of the website and can in no way be held liable for poor operation or temporary (un)availability of the website or for any form of damage, direct or indirect, arising from access to or use of the website.
JA cannot in any case be held liable, directly or indirectly, for any special or other damages resulting from the use of this site or any other site, in particular as a result of links or hyperlinks, including, without limitation, all losses, work interruptions, damage to programs or other data on the computer system, hardware, software, or other of the user.
The website may contain hyperlinks to websites or pages of third parties, or indirectly refer to them. The placement of links to these websites or pages does not imply any implicit approval of their content. JA expressly declares that it has no control over the content or other characteristics of these websites and can in no case be held liable for the content or characteristics thereof or for any other form of damage resulting from their use.
VLIR makes great efforts to ensure that the information provided is complete, accurate, precise, and up-to-date. Despite these efforts, inaccuracies may occur in the information provided. If the information contains inaccuracies or if certain information is not available on or through the site, VLIR will make the greatest possible effort to correct this as quickly as possible.
However, VLIR cannot be held liable for direct or indirect damage resulting from the use of the information on this site. If you notice any inaccuracies in the information available on the site, you can contact the site administrator.
For more information on how VLIR processes personal data, please see the following detailed privacy statement: link.
The Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO) highly values the protection of personal data and the respect for privacy. For questions regarding when, why, or how we process personal data, you can contact the Data Protection Officer of the Research Foundation – Flanders by emailing dpo@fwo.be.
However, FWO cannot be held liable for any direct or indirect damage resulting from the use of the information on this site. If you identify inaccuracies in the information made available through the site, you can contact the site administrator.
For more information on how FWO processes personal data, please see the following detailed privacy statement: link.
Only staff members with remuneration (salary or scholarship) on the date of the survey are included in the database and statistics. The group of staff paid from operational grants includes independent and assistant academic staff (ZAP and AAP) and administrative and technical staff (ATP). The group of staff paid from sources other than operational grants includes scientific staff (WP) and administrative and technical staff (ATP). This group also includes:
– PhD scholarship holders and post-doctoral researchers with a scholarship, provided they are subject to social security contributions;
– Staff members working at universities but paid directly by funding institutions;
– Staff members working in the social sector, if they are paid by the university.
Teaching staff are visible in separate personnel categories:
– OP 1 (Teaching Staff Group 1): lecturers and senior lecturers;
– OP 2 (Teaching Staff Group 2): assistants, doctor-assistants, and work leaders;
– OP 3 (Teaching Staff Group 3): lecturers, senior lecturers, professors, and full professors.
The displayed categories of Lecturer / Senior Lecturer / Professor / Full Professor include both ZAP and OP3 staff. Tenure track lecturers are also included among the lecturers.
We also display “Other Academic Staff,” which consists of other ZAP and AAP, OP1 practical assistants, and OP2 work leaders. In the VLIR personnel statistics, this includes grade codes 10F, 10G, 10H, 20B, 20D, 20G, 20H, and 20I.
For more detailed information about the staff members included in the VLIR database, we refer to their website.
The nationality is as provided by the staff member to the institutions and universities. Based on this data, the number of FTEs of academic and scientific staff in all of Flanders with each nationality is determined. For privacy reasons, in the charts per institution, nationalities are grouped by continent (with the exception of researchers with Belgian nationality). The division into continents largely follows the (geographical) division of countries by the United Nations, but “overseas territories” are classified with the continent of the parent country. Therefore, the charts show the following nationalities:
– Belgian
– European (excluding Belgians)
– African
– Asian
– North American
– South American
– Oceanian (including Australia and New Zealand)
The funding channels present in the VLIR database can be found on their website: https://vlir.be/publicaties/personeelsstatistieken/ . On Academic Compass, some categories are grouped, resulting in the following items displayed in the interactive graphs:
Educational statistics for higher education in Flanders provide detailed information on various aspects of higher education in the region. These statistics are typically collected and published by institutions such as the Department of Education and Training of the Flemish government. Key components of these statistics include student numbers, student profiles, teaching staff, study programs, and funding. These statistics are often published in annual reports and are available through various platforms such as the website of the Department of Education and Training and the Flemish Ministry of Education and Training. They offer valuable insights for policymakers, researchers, educational institutions, and the general public to analyze and understand trends and developments in higher education.
With the interactive application Dataloep (in Dutch), you can easily search for educational data in Flanders. By using criteria and filters such as residence, study program, and year of birth, you can find the desired figures for various academic years.
At Academic Compass, we present a portion of this information, focusing on the number of students (excluding PhD students) enrolled at the five Flemish universities. To do this, we exclude the Doctoral program as a type of education in Dataloep but retain other programs such as Bachelor’s, Master’s, Master after Master, teacher training, etc. Furthermore, we have removed data from colleges as we are limiting our scope to the five Flemish universities.
The Hogeschool-Universiteit Brussel (HUBrussel or HUB) organized university degrees with KU Leuven since 2013. In 2014, HUB merged with the Katholieke Hogeschool Sint-Lieven to become Odisee. Since there is only VLIR personnel data for HUB up to 2014, and it includes a relatively small group of researchers, we have opted not to display this data for visual clarity.
