Brief history of the Institute for European Studies and Vesalius College

Brief history of the Institute for European Studies

At the start of the new Millennium, (2000) Flemish Minister for Education Marleen Vanderpoorten wanted to help universities in their international recognition through the setup of “Bijzondere Universitaire Instituten” – special university institutes. These institutes would be founded within the universities, but would receive separate funding that would allow them to work at “market conditions” and with “functional autonomy”. In good Belgian tradition, each university was given part of the cake – notably Brussels and Antwerp could each create their own special institute. Basic condition: it had to enhance an already existing international programme that had proven merit and international standing. Antwerp chose its already existing Institute for Development Policy (IOB); Brussels chose for a new institute: the Institute for European Studies.

The official starting date of the IES, according to the Decree, was January 2001, whereas the Institute formally started on 1 January 2002. According to the Decree, the mission of the IES is to teach at advanced Master level (MaNaMa), to do research (PhD level) and to provide academic services in the field of European Studies, including through the use of “virtual educational platforms”. The Dean of the Faculty Michel Magits and the to-be-President of the Institute, Bart De Schutter, together with a few other founding fathers of the Institute (amongst whom was Karel De Gucht) actively sought people that had management experience and at the same time knowledge about virtual educational platforms. In the summer of 2001, Anthony Antoine was asked to write a business plan for the Institute; he was appointed “CEO” in January 2002. The CEO title only held for two years, after which it was renamed to “Executive Director”.

The IES launch

The Institute started off with a conference on “The Laeken Declaration and the Future of Europe” at the Egmont Palace on 22 January 2002, where it hosted several Flemish and Belgian Ministers and politicians (amongst whom Karel De Gucht) at a roundtable moderated by Jonathan Faull. The conference attracted over 100 people.

Yet the biggest event that year was organised in the framework of the 30th anniversary of the PILC (now: LLM) programme. With “The EU in a globalised world – the years to come” at the Solvay Library (near the European Parliament), this two-day panel conference attracted nearly 150 participants.

Research at the IES

As the IES started under the auspices of the VUB Faculty of Law, its first projects were of a legal nature. The IES was home to research that led to law proposals against money laundering and in the framework of the fight against terrorism. It also helped the Ministry of Justice implement European legislation to that end. The first big European project was a Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence to create educational modules on European Law and European Policy (2002).

In order to strengthen the research potential of the Institute, at the end of 2004, a call was launched to attract three “senior research fellows” – one for each policy ‘pillar’ of the EU (1st pillar = internal market, 2nd pillar = foreign affairs, 3rd pillar = internal security / borders / migration). Enter Harri Kalimo, Giovanna Bono and Richard Lewis. An academic director was also sought and found: Sebastian Oberthür, who started at the IES in 2005. Especially in the field of sustainable development, a lot of externally funded research projects shortly followed.

As the EU reformed, in 2006 the IES created its five research clusters: Migration, Asylum and Diversity; Foreign and Security Policy; Environment and Sustainable Development; EU and China; Information Society. The five clusters would be adapted slightly in 2010: the theme on the EU and China disappeared and made way for a new cluster on European Economy. In the next years, these clusters would be reshuffled a bit, yet the research “themes” would remain the same.

Teaching at the IES

The IES started off as a kind-of subsidiary of the Faculty of Law. It was there to provide a research umbrella for the LLM programme (then still called PILC - Programme on International Legal Cooperation), and therefore concentrated on legal research and the teaching of international and European law. As the umbrella grew, so did the diversity of researchers. The aspirations of the Institute went beyond Law and the university itself saw an added value in encompassing all European-related research (and teaching) at the university into the Institute. Backed by the Audit Committee, that every 5 years reviews the functioning of the IES on behalf of the Flemish Government, it widened its scope to also include political and economic science, and in 2016 became the host of the Euromaster programme, formerly organised by the VUB Faculty ES.

In parallel, the online educational modules continued, forming a tool for both teaching and training. A lot of training programmes were set up where the online modules were used as prime or additional teaching material. The online modules were also used in exchange programmes (which we had with institutions in the United States, South Korea, Romania, Armenia and Georgia).

Throughout the history of both institutions, we can also see that IES and Vesalius College have both been international hubs. The PILC programme traditionally attracted students from all over the world, and the Euromaster programme was and is not much different in that respect. Over the years, the Institute and Vesalius also hosted many “study abroad” students, a tradition that continues to exist with the BSoG. It had exchange programmes with the Tbilisi State University (Georgia), with the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies – HUFS (South-Korea), with Hendrix College (US) and with the University of Southern California - USC (US).

In 2003, the IES obtained a second Jean Monnet project – a module – to organise a number of events in collaboration with other institutions, such as UNU-CRIS, the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna and the University of Vienna. The events, ranging from a joint lecture series with UNU-CRIS to a conference on diplomacy in Vienna culminated in the organisation of a Summer school in 2004. The joint summer school has been on the portfolio of the Institute ever since.

Brief history of Vesalius College

Vesalius College (VeCo) was established in 1987 by Boston University and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) as the first US-style Liberal Arts College in the BeNeLux region to provide a new form of university education in Belgium. Its founders were inspired by the liberal arts Colleges in the United States that place emphasis on innovative and student-centred teaching as well as on a close relationship between students and professors. Vesalius College has followed this model of education for more than thirty years now, forming outstanding graduates who have been admitted to leading universities and graduate programmes in the US, UK, Europe and other countries and who have been hired by leading international companies.

VeCo's first Dean was Mr Franz Bingen, who kept the position until 1997. Franz Bingen and his wife Andrée are still active for the Vesalius community as their Fund awards one Vesalius student every year with the Honours Essay Prize.

1991 saw the first graduating class of Vesalius College. Two years later, the College faced an accreditation problem, following the Coens degree, which was solved a few years later. In 2004, Vesalius College became a 'de jure' non-profit organisation (vzw) and in the same year, its 3-year Bachelor decrees according to the Bologna reform of higher education in Europe kicked off, recognised by the Flemish authorities: Business Studies, Communication Studies and International Affairs. The International Law Bachelor programme would be added to that portfolio 11 years later.

In 2009, VeCo started its first MA programme and around the same time, it closed off agreements with other educational institutions in Brussels including Kent University, RITS, Royal Military Academy, BICCS and IES.

In 2011, Vesalius College moved to Pleinlaan 5 and started collaborating more closely with the IES.

In 2018, it started two new MA programmes, one on Diplomacy and Global Governance and one on International Security.

Teaching at Vesalius College

The College offers three-year academic degree programmes in Business and Economics (Global Business and Entrepreneurship), Global Communication Studies, International Affairs and International & European Law, all of which lead to a Bachelor’s degree. These programmes are accredited by the Dutch-Flemish Accreditation Organisation (NVAO) and are recognised by the Flemish government, and, on the principle of mutual recognition, by other European governments that participate in the Bologna process for the reform of university education.

Although Vesalius College is now legally independent from the VUB, the two institutions maintain a very close relationship. Vesalius College, though its student numbers are not large, has the great advantage of being able to draw on the academic facilities and student services of a large research university.

Instruction at Vesalius College is entirely in English (with the exception of language courses). Most of its students are native English speakers or have done their secondary education in English, but some students from other backgrounds have accepted the challenge of a rigorous education entirely in English. Vesalius College professors themselves have been educated at the world’s leading universities in the Anglo-Saxon education sphere.

Andreas Vesalius – Innovative Teacher, Interdisciplinary Critical Thinker

Andreas Vesalius was one of the premier freethinkers of the Renaissance and an innovative scientist, combining revolutionary approaches to anatomy with outstanding skills from neighbouring fields. Most importantly, he questioned received wisdom and institutional dogma and instead expected from his students experimental and hands-on learning.

Born in Brussels in 1514, Vesalius is most well-known as a pioneer of modern medicine, as evidenced by his crowning achievement, the first treatise of scientific anatomy, De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem, published in 1543 and meticulously illustrated with 323 woodcuts. Yet, as a young student he first studied arts in Belgium, then studied medicine at the University of Paris whilst working for the military as a surgeon.

His varied background serves as a reminder for the interdisciplinary and ‘liberal arts’ spirit of Vesalius College. In 1537, aged 23, Vesalius received his doctorate in medicine from the University of Padua, where he was immediately offered the Chair of Surgery and Anatomy. His teaching methods were at the time highly innovative: instead of relying on received wisdom of Galen (the leading authority at the time), Vesalius performed dissections during lectures and urged students to carry out dissections themselves and together in order to ‘learn by doing’: “I strive that in public dissection the students do as much as possible so that if even the least trained of them must dissect a cadaver before a group of spectators, he will be able to perform it accurately with his own hands; and by comparing their studies one with another they will properly understand, this part of medicine” (Andreas Vesalius - In De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem).

Vesalius’ expectations towards his students and confidence in their ability to learn by being ‘thrown in the deep end’ continues to inspire the faculty at Vesalius College to the present day. Vesalius insisted that only a scientific method, critical reasoning, rigorous empirical testing and a constant strive for improvement are acceptable ways for science and knowledge to progress. His insistence that he is “not accustomed to saying anything with certainty after only one or two observations” remains an important cornerstone of the College’s expectation towards its students about the duty of life-long learning and a critical, open-minded attitude.

Collaborating since 2006

As the Institute for European Studies (IES) and Vesalius College (VeCo) have been neighbours for many years (2002-2005; 2011-now), there have been a lot of connections between these two institutions. Many IES researchers, for example, have started their teaching experience in Vesalius College programmes. Also, as they share an international audience, IES and VeCo have collaborated on joint recruitment, communication and marketing as far back as since 2006. In February 2021, the IES and VeCo formed a formal alliance under the name of the Brussels School of Governance.