This is our ninth contribution for The Cocoon Goes Global, a series that give a sense of what the philosophy profession looks like outside of the Anglophone West. Today: Belgium. This is a guest contribution by Sylvia Wenmackers, BOF research professor at the Institute of Philosophy, University of Leuven.
What academia in Flanders is like
Belgium is a small country in the West of Europe. Flanders is the North part, where Dutch is the official language. In the South part, Wallonia, French is the official language. (There's also a small German part in the East, but since there is no university, it will not figure here.)
There was a time when the elite in Belgian spoke French and all university education was in French as well. As a result of the Flemish emancipation, the universities still have language regulations: a substantial percentage of courses must be in Dutch (more at Bachelor than at Master level) and professors are required to learn Dutch, typically in five years. This requirement does not apply to doctoral or postdoctoral researchers. Still, I will teach you two Dutch words right away! They are synonyms for philosophy: filosofie and wijsbegeerte. (The last one is a literal translation of the Greek.)
In Belgium, all students who have finished their secondary education, typically at 18 years of age, are allowed to start higher education at the university or university college (hogeschool) of their choice. There are no entrance exams (except for medicine and dentistry). Lately, many universities have started organizing orientation tests, but the results of these are non-binding. For international students, language requirements are common.
All Bachelor programs take three years. The regular Master program in Philosophy takes one year, while the Research Master is two years. After that, selected students can start a doctoral program, which typically takes at least four years.
There are five Flemish universities, four of which have a philosophy faculty. From large to small:
- Leuven University. This is the only Flemish university were philosophy is an autonomous faculty, called the Institute of Philosophy. It's organized in six research centres, of which the Husserl archives are probably the best well-known. Leuven offers both a Bachelor and Master program fully in English (parallel to the programs in Dutch), so there is certainly an international student community and some opportunity to get teaching experience in English.
Yes, I'm biased since I work there :), but statistically speaking it makes sense that your eyewitness should come from the largest philosophy faculty.
In the other three cases, philosophy is part of the Arts faculty, and as far as I know there are no programs in English (though international researchers are common, of course):
- Ghent University. Department of Philosophy and Moral Sciences. Organized in seven research groups. Well-known for ethics, philosophy and history of science, and adaptive logics.
- Antwerp University. The department is organized in three centres, including ethics and philosophical psychology.
- Brussels University. Research centres include ethics & humanism and logic & philosophy of science.
How to become an academic philosopher in Flanders
There are roughly three ways to get a doctoral or postdoctoral position in Flanders:
- Responding to a vacancy. Unlike the Netherlands, for instance, there is no central website for academic vacancies in Belgium, so you have to check all websites separately. Typically, they are also listed on Philos-L.
- Applying for a personal grant. The Flemish Research Fund (FWO.be) has a yearly call for personal grants at the doctoral and the postdoctoral level. Before you can apply, you have to find a supervisor who is willing to host you. This person may help you with figuring out the process, showing you an example of a filled in proposal, etc.
- Setting up a project proposal. Although only professors can apply for a project (either via FWO or via internal university funds), you can consider asking your prospective supervisor to submit one that would allow them to hire you. This can be done in parallel with an application for a personal grant, or when you aren't eligible for those grants (e.g., too senior).
To get a tenure track or permanent position, there are also three options:
- Check the individual university websites for regular vacancies.
- Some universities offer BOF professorships: these are positions with more research time / a reduced teaching load. They may be labelled for a specific profile or completely open.
- If you plan to apply for an ERC grant (more on this below), most universities will be happy to help you and they may offer you a position when you are successful.
Unlike France, for instance, we don't have permanent research positions.
To make it easier to find the vacancy websites, which sometimes requires wading through a patch of Dutch, I've listed them here. These links may change at any time, but this is the November 2019 edition:
So, what is it like?!
The democratic education system that I described at the start means we have large student groups and failure rates of 50% and up are common in the first year of many programs. Typical challenges for professors here involve how to activate large groups, how to provide feedback (peer feedback, collective feedback, online learning, etc.), and – especially in international and/or abridged programs – how to deal with diversity in background knowledge.
There are a lot of philosophy lectures and events in Belgium. For instance, our centre has a biweekly research seminar: this is mandatory for our Research Master students, but also serves a regular meeting with colleagues. In addition, there are evening lectures, conferences, etc.
The university cities are relatively close and well-connected by train. You can live in any of these cities and work in any other, if you're so inclined. Living in Ghent and working in Leuven is very feasible, for instance. (I've done so.) It is also easy to travel to Paris, Utrecht, Amsterdam, etc.; take at least two days if you plan to go to London.
As you may have gathered from the above, most of the funding is distributed via competitive channels, which means that as a philosopher, you have to apply for research projects. One drawback of this system is that the forms are mainly tailored to science lab settings. The whole procedure is premised on the assumption that you manage a group of researchers, for whom you can write work packages, Gantt charts, etc.
These are three main channels that potentially provide funding to philosophers, from least to most competitive:
- Universities typically have internal calls, which they can organize as they see fit (e.g., separate channels for interdisciplinary research if they want to promote this). They may provide runner-up financing in case of a near miss in one of the external competitions.
- I already mentioned the Flemish funding body, FWO. To give you an idea of the success rate: in the latest round of fundamental research projects, it was 22.5%. Source here.
- There is also the European Research Council (ERC), a funding body of the European Union. Among other calls, it assigns personal research grants to postdocs and professors depending on the level of seniority (Starting Grant, Consolidator Grant, and Advanced Grant). As an example, the success rate for Starting Grants (aimed at postdocs who are 2 to 7 years past PhD) in 2018 was 12.7%. Source here.
There are four ranks within that of professor: assistant professor (docent), associate professor (hoofddocent), professor (hoogleraar), and full professor (gewoon hoogleraar or ordinarius). You can be a PhD supervisor from the lowest rank (unlike in the Netherlands, for instance). As a postdoc, you can be co-supervisor.
PS: Science4Refugees is also for philosophers!
If you are a refugee looking to do research in Flanders, or anywhere else in Europe, it’s good to know about Science4Refugees. This is their mission statement: “The Science4Refugees initiative and EURAXESS portal provide research refugee friendly internships, part-time and full-time jobs, access to an European Research Community, as well as a complete range of information and support services on working and living in Europe.” More info at this website.
Despite the name, this isn't just for scientists, but also for researchers in the humanities. Universities who support this have the logo on their website. You can look for research positions funded by the European Union here. You can filter by research field, country, etc. Not all of them are specifically related to the Science4Refugees initiative, but those that are show the logo in the list.
Another initiative worth mentioning here is Scholars at risk. Their mission statement: “Scholars at Risk protects scholars suffering grave threats to their lives, liberty and well-being by arranging temporary research and teaching positions at institutions in our network as well as by providing advisory and referral services.” More info and contact at the website here.
Thanks to Helen De Cruz for helpful comments on the previous version.
Leave a Reply