Kurt Debaere

HOWEST University of Applied Sciences

A University of Applied Sciences, we like to describe ourselves as atypical, creative, innovative and entrepreneurial. Anticipating the future and exploring the talents and motivation of each student, we coach our students to become competent, highly employable, team oriented young professionals. We aim to set the mark for socially relevant, practice-based education and valorisation oriented research and community service for the broad regional and international labour market. Anticipating new trends and needs, we design new profiles. In order to do so, we generate practice-based, state of the art curricula in close collaboration with the labour field. In a multidisciplinary setting, we integrate education, research and community service in each curriculum, thus creating an added value for its students, staff and society as a whole. Howest University of Applied Sciences has 8,500 students and 800 staff. We are a partner of the Association University of Ghent, which is the second largest in Flanders with nearly 70,000 students. We have campuses in Bruges and Kortrijk, two historical towns in the province of West-Flanders and in Oudenaarde, equally a historical town in the province of East-Flanders. We offer our students an interesting portfolio of 24 bachelor programmes and 13 advanced degrees, ranging from management studies, health care and nursing, energy management, applied architecture (BIM) and product development to teaching, journalism and tourism. We are very proud that Howest is the largest University of Applied sciences in West-Flanders, as far as programmes in computer technology, cybercrime, new media and digital arts and entertainment are concerned. The Howest Academy offers a wide range of post-graduate and tailor made micro degrees. Research is key, especially in the field of virtual and mixed reality, applied artificial intelligence and educational and training games.